CAR: ’05 Plate Vauxhall Corsa C 1.4 Sri (Engine Code: Z14 XEP), Mileage: 50k

FAULT: Won’t start first attempt, but will second. Has been happening about a week and a half, since the car came out of the garage for the below fault with loss of power.

RECENT FAULTS: Couple of weeks ago: Had the car about 4 months now, she had an oil leak from when I got her (got knows how long before, more on that later). Gets driven daily for a half hour-1 hour commute through rush hour city traffic (minus 1 month of that where I was away).

Had been keeping an eye on the oil and keeping it topped up until I had a chance to get the leak sorted. Couple of weeks ago I’d neglected to do this, driving out of work notice a complete loss of power.

Pull over, oils barely registering on the dipstick. Top her up, and this loss of power continues, for the next week or so until I could get her into the garage. Felt like I was in 5 th when I was in 2 nd (after about 2000RPM) – to give you an idea of the power loss.

Took her to the garage, they run all their diagnostics, don’t find anything, test drive, know there’s a problem but can’t diagnose, 70quid for nothing. No warning lights on or anything like that.

Change the oil and spark plugs and take her for a good spin out of the country. This has fixed the loss of power. However, ever since she came out of the garage, she hasn’t started first time, takes 2 attempts to start now, suspicious it may be caused by them, but unsure.

SPARK PLUGS: Changed spark plugs, look fouled (see picture).

[url] http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/538/Uesw8H.jpg [/url]

OIL: Changed oil, oil looked fine, but the filter is a mess, fit for the skip (pictured). Bought the car 4 months ago from a dodgy backstreet dealership (mistake) and the dealer tells me he’d had a full service.

[url] http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/661/7dGSJa.jpg [/url]

EXHAUST WATER: While changing the oil and plugs I noticed quite a bit of water in the exhaust, seems to be okay now but it was parked on a slope at the time (front end up) to keep it out of the rain.

ALTERNATOR/BATTERY: Tested Alternator/battery. 12+V engine off, around 14V engine on. Seem fine.

TIMING BELT: Noisy but I’ve heard worse.

FUEL PUMP PRIME: Read somewhere it could be to do with the fuel system and to try priming the pump before starting her up. Turned the key one clicked a few times this morning and she started first time, but after abit of a struggle (couple of seconds) going to try again tonight.

Faults few months ago: A few months ago she had a similar problem with loss of power, not quite as severe, was intermittent and I found if the fuel gauge was less than a quarter it would happen but if I kept her filled up it would be fine. This hasn’t happened since though so not sure what to make of it.

Plans this weekend:

Plan to replace the fuel filter, see what that looks like and if it makes a difference.

Going to check the coil pack, if I can find the required resistances somewhere.

My friend tells me that if I disconnect the battery for an hour it should reset the ecu and sensors etc, in case this is the fault, however I don’t have the code for the radio, anywhere I can get this for free or reasonably cheap atleast?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.