Car 'Pulls Back' and Stalls

Soldato
Joined
16 Mar 2005
Posts
2,889
Location
UK
Hi,
My car (A 2000 Vauxhall Vectra 2.0 SRI) has a problem. I was driving it home a few weeks ago and it basically started chugging and pulling back so i was getting hardly any power and then it would stall. so it stalled on a nice pitch black country lane at 2am, but the crucial thing is I tried to start her again and bang started first time like it always does and i got the rest of the way home (5-10 miles) without a problem.

I haven't been able to fix the car yet but getting round to it now. It sits on the drive all week whilst i'm away and gets a small run on the weekend just round the block becuase i really don't want to kill it. I left it for 2 weeks as i was away and came back to start it and the battery was completely dead. so I jumped it a couple days ago and left her running, it stalled as usual on the spot and then started straight away no problems. left her running again this time no problems. went out to start it this morning and battery it completely dead, nothing left...does cold weather affect the battery and should i expect it to be going dead in thsi short amount of time?

Now, I've had another Vectra before this one and i had a similar problem, albeit without the stalling and it turned out to be the crankshaft sensor and was easily replaced. Does this sound like it could be the same thing? becuase it does to me. I'm sure it's an electrical fault the car just sounds right and seems mechanically sound.

I mean, a short circuit or slightly faulty alternator so the battery isn't chargine 100% couldn't cause this could it?

anyway thanks for your time and any help would be excellent, i'm no mechanic i know naff all and i'm stuck here!
 
Crankshaft sensor without a doubt

£110 replaced, but this usually shows up the orange engine sign on the dash.

Could be the Idle control valve, but it really does sound like the CSS
 
It jerks and then stalls - certainly does sound like the CSS and they are common to failure on these engines.
Might not be registering a fault code due to the battery drain resetting the ECU.
 
S7yl3s said:
engine management light comes on but will go off if i turn the engine off and restart...

A code should be stored then. A garage can read it, there used to be a method with a paperclip, not sure if that still applies.
 
On my 206 this happened when an electrical clip had come loose from the injectors... but it did it on the M6 whilst doing 70 in the outside lane overtaking.
 
Dup said:
On my 206 this happened when an electrical clip had come loose from the injectors... but it did it on the M6 whilst doing 70 in the outside lane overtaking.
yeh, very unlucky... :eek:
 
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