Citroen Xantia (1993 - 2000) - 97 1.8 Engine stops when press clunch

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Mon 1 Jun 2009 10:46
97 1.8 Engine stops when press clunch - pnedic
Hello

I am driving Xantia 1.8i (petrol) 8V made on October 1997. I have strange problem that sometimes happen.

Sometimes during driving (at normal engine's working temperature, approx 80C) my engine just shut off. It happens in the following situation: slowing down, pressing the brakes and pressing the clunch (and trying to turn the steering wheel). To be clear in the situations when I am stopping for trafic light or want to takeout from the highway.

In this moment (when engine stop), my brakes still working correctly (thankfully), but my steering wheel lose the power (cannot turn). So I need fastly to turn on the engine again (with contact key). When turn on engine again, I can turn the wheel.

My brakes working well, rising up and going down with hydraulic system, also working well.

So the problem occures (sometimes) whe I press the clunch, the RPM suddenly falls down to the zero. This happens, lets say, in one of 30 such situations. Very rarely, this happen when the engine is cold (when leer RPM is approx 1200).

There is no service here where the people can understand the reason of such behaviour. Unfortunatelly, I am not able to present this problem to the service people (when I want to do this, the Citroen doesn't want to do it :)).

can somebody help me what to fix ?

Edited by Webmaster on 02/06/2009 at 01:36

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Mon 1 Jun 2009 11:12
97 1.8 Engine stops when press clunch - Dynamic Dave
No idea if your car has an idle control valve, but that's the first place I'd be looking to see if it wants cleaning or replacing.
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Mon 1 Jun 2009 11:23
97 1.8 Engine stops when press clunch - pnedic
Thanks for quick response.

Do you mean on engine speed control (RPM control) ? Sorry I'm not quite good with english names of engine components !
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Tue 2 Jun 2009 01:41
97 1.8 Engine stops when press clunch - Dynamic Dave
Do you mean on engine speed control (RPM control) ?


Citroen *may* well call it that.

Hopefully someone who knows a bit more about Citroen than I do (that shouldn't be difficult) will be along shortly.
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Wed 3 Jun 2009 16:07
97 1.8 Engine stops when press clunch - rip
the idle control valve/stepper motor or rpm control if thats what citroen call it- on this engine it is underneath the flexable black air intake pipe. it will have magnetti marrelli written on it.

simply remove the connector with four wires in it (may need to remove one or two pieces to get to it) then using torx fitting unscrew the two screws and give it a good clean in wd40 and see if it helps- they can get gummed up with dirt. while you in that region give the air intake a good clean.

Edited by rip on 03/06/2009 at 16:11

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