On my Mrs motor, a 57 plate Astra twin top 1.6 petrol. It died a sudden death on the M1 on Saturday.
Symptoms are:
- Spanner light on
- Won't rev over 1500 rpm
- Sounds like nails in a tumble drier (yes, even worse than normal!)
- Brake pedal rock hard, no vacuum on the servo pipe
- No hissing sounds, unlikely a manifold air leak
- Servo vacuum pipe isn't convoluted, just a fire arrester thing between servo and inlet manifold
It's under warranty, so we just shipped it straight back to Vauxhall, but I'm completely stumped as to what the problem could be.
Anyone got any guesses?
Chris
Engine F****D up?
Cam tensioner failed and chain jumped a tooth?
adrian
my guess is the cars gone into limp home mode and probably not generating enough vacuum for the servo. Was it miss firing?
probably a sensor went capoot, if it still run it can't be catastrophic, the engines just trying to protect itself
Could it be a really big manifold air leak. too big to hiss?
Steve.
I'm copying Mr Whippy and saying some sort of sensor fault resulting in it going into limp home mode.
remember all this fun?
Crankshaft sensor
Cheers
David
Yep crankshaft sensor, mine went on an old vectra, very similar problems.
Crankshaft sensor for me too 
O
sounds like they could have done with fitting two
if crank shaft sensor goes then ecu would not know when to fire the ignition - maybe that accounts for the bag of nails noise?
Limp home mode. Banging and clatering is the unburnt fuel in the cc above 25mph it does that. Condensor on one or more plugs failed.
Or it could be something else 
let use know when you find out. Is there a prize for the right answer? 
.......... Neil
It'll be a sensor failing leading to limp home. Could be pretty much anything but crankshaft sensor could be a good option.
Well the Mrs rung up and was told 'it's a valve in the engine', which doesn't really cut it down. I'll make sure I go with
her when she collects it and find out the real problem!
It's going to take them a few days to fix it, whatever it is. She's getting a courtesy car though so she's happy.
Chris
quote:
Originally posted by stevec
Could it be a really big manifold air leak. too big to hiss?