Hi,
A friend of mine has just bought a '99 V Citroen Xsara 1.4i Forte with (I think) 68,000 miles on it. He collected the car on Saturday (with a 1 year warranty) from deleted. This is his first car. I received the following email this morning.
"On cold, the engine starts and no problem. Around 60 miles onward, the problem starts. The engine start giving problem like when we driven uphill road on motorway, the car speed reduced from 70 to 50 on full power. I keep hold to full power, but no improvement. As soon as downhill road reach, the car picked-up the speed, but its not looking good and I realized that the car not doing well.
Around 80 miles I have to take exit to reach my destination. Then the real problem myself, Mohan and my wife felt. The car start shaking even the car stopped fully, handbrake on with neutral gear. I find the better place to stop the car and open the brunet. I saw the engine shake and vibrate too much. We continue with this problem and spend few hours with my friend house.
When we return to home, the engine was cold and again without any problem we driven around 60 miles. After the same problem comes and the car start shaking even the car stopped fully, handbrake on with neutral gear. Some time the shake goes off if I raised little power when the car stopped fully. But I can feel the difference about change the gear and pick-up. Its totally nightmare."
Sounds pretty major. Does he have to try and get it fixed under the warranty, or is he within his rights to take it back to the dealer and ask for his money back? The car clearly isn't 'fit for purpose' in it's current condition.
What advice should I give?
{where he bought it from is irrelevant to your question. DD}
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I wouldn't panic too much immediately as it may only be a simple ignition problem.
We had one of these cars - same 1.4 engine a year or so ago and from what I could see the engine and drivetrain is fairly simple and reliable. If the car is under warranty I would try and get it sorted on this first, otherwise the thing I would look at is a bad spark-plug.
If the car starts well from cool/cold this probably means that the ignition leads are okay-ish, however if the car loses power and runs rough when HOT this could be a sparkplg which is either breaking down or has a crack in it which worsens with heat. This has happened to me on another type of car, so its worth having a look at.
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Thanks for the responses. The Dealer has sent it to a local garage who have confirmed that it is an ignition problem. No loan car, but it'll be fixed in a couple of days.
Thanks again for the help
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Correct. 'Not Fit for Purpose'. I suspect that the garage did not kow of this problem as they would not have driven it 60 miles to find out. Hopeflly then will lend him a car whilst htey find the problem. Give them a covering letter detailing the fault and ask in what time scale he can expect to have the car rapaired or replaced. Regards Peter
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I had a similar problem on my Xsara 1.4. I guess you need a new coil and an ECU software update. It should take a Cit dealer an hour.
The 1.4 is a good old honest engine and generally reliable. I know DD deleted the name of the garage, but was it a Citroen main dealer?
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