Firstly sorry for the essay!
My other half's P reg 1.6 Megane (100k miles on the clock) isn't feeling too well and we wondered if anyone has any idea what might be up?
Quick background..she hadn't changed the oil in her car for a couple of years, and inspection of the dipstick showed that it was below minimum. We topped the oil up (didn't have time to go get a full oil and filter change as we were travelling to Somerset for a friends wedding reception that day). The car was running great at this point.
Driving up the A35 when the battery light illuminated on the dashboard. We pulled over and took a look and I could see that the alternator belt was in a bad way. We decided to travel into the next town and find a garage to get it sorted. The car was still running fine at this point.
2 miles down the road there was a snapping noise from the engine bay so we pulled over into a layby. The car sounded like it was running on only 3 cylinders. On further inspection the alternator belt had snapped, taking out the power steering belt at the same time. They'd wrapped themselves around the crank pulley and it was a right mess.
We called out the AA who replaced the alternator belt, but he didn't have one big enough to replace the power steering pump so we agreed to leave that until we could get a replacement. When he'd finished, the car was still sounding rough, so we asked him to take a look. He checked out all the pipework and found a split in one, but after taping it up that still didn't help. He suggested that we go on our way and see how it goes, and as we were in a rush to get to our destination we agreed.
For the whole journey the car was very underpowered. Hills were a real struggle, and we couldn't get above 60mph. It would loose all power for 10 seconds at a time and then come back to life. When we arrived I took a look under the bonnet and there was smoke coming from the bottom of the exhaust downpipe. There was also fresh oil around anywhere that had a seal/gasket.
We called the AA out again the next morning to find out if they though it was ok to drive home and he diagnosed a fault with the cat or the lambda sensor. The cat has been rattling for a while so we took his word for it and drove back home.
I'm concerned by the extra oil around the engine bay, and am not convinced that a dying cat/lambda sensor would cause the symptoms we're seeing. A local garage has suggested a compression test to try and find out the fault. What makes no sense is that it started running so rough at the same time that the belts broke.
Searching around the net these seems like quite commons symptoms for Meganes which are about to suffer with engine failure. I'm also struggling to find many 1.6 Meganes on Autotrader with more than 100k miles on the clock, which is worrying!
Anyone got any ideas what could be up?? We're currently trying to decide whether to scrap it or get it fixed. Its starting to turn into a money pit!
Cheers,
Andy
My other half's P reg 1.6 Megane (100k miles on the clock) isn't feeling too well and we wondered if anyone has any idea what might be up?
Quick background..she hadn't changed the oil in her car for a couple of years, and inspection of the dipstick showed that it was below minimum. We topped the oil up (didn't have time to go get a full oil and filter change as we were travelling to Somerset for a friends wedding reception that day). The car was running great at this point.
Driving up the A35 when the battery light illuminated on the dashboard. We pulled over and took a look and I could see that the alternator belt was in a bad way. We decided to travel into the next town and find a garage to get it sorted. The car was still running fine at this point.
2 miles down the road there was a snapping noise from the engine bay so we pulled over into a layby. The car sounded like it was running on only 3 cylinders. On further inspection the alternator belt had snapped, taking out the power steering belt at the same time. They'd wrapped themselves around the crank pulley and it was a right mess.
We called out the AA who replaced the alternator belt, but he didn't have one big enough to replace the power steering pump so we agreed to leave that until we could get a replacement. When he'd finished, the car was still sounding rough, so we asked him to take a look. He checked out all the pipework and found a split in one, but after taping it up that still didn't help. He suggested that we go on our way and see how it goes, and as we were in a rush to get to our destination we agreed.
For the whole journey the car was very underpowered. Hills were a real struggle, and we couldn't get above 60mph. It would loose all power for 10 seconds at a time and then come back to life. When we arrived I took a look under the bonnet and there was smoke coming from the bottom of the exhaust downpipe. There was also fresh oil around anywhere that had a seal/gasket.
We called the AA out again the next morning to find out if they though it was ok to drive home and he diagnosed a fault with the cat or the lambda sensor. The cat has been rattling for a while so we took his word for it and drove back home.
I'm concerned by the extra oil around the engine bay, and am not convinced that a dying cat/lambda sensor would cause the symptoms we're seeing. A local garage has suggested a compression test to try and find out the fault. What makes no sense is that it started running so rough at the same time that the belts broke.
Searching around the net these seems like quite commons symptoms for Meganes which are about to suffer with engine failure. I'm also struggling to find many 1.6 Meganes on Autotrader with more than 100k miles on the clock, which is worrying!
Anyone got any ideas what could be up?? We're currently trying to decide whether to scrap it or get it fixed. Its starting to turn into a money pit!
Cheers,
Andy
