C3 1.4 petrol 2007 - running issues

[Dave W68]

Hello All,

First post, this is regarding a Citroen C3 and its my dads car (bought 2nd hand, 2 months ago - FSH 1 owner less than 70K miles, private sale)...

Its a 57 plate 1.4 petrol (72hp) - 5 door

The engine management light came on about 3-4 weeks ago, the computer states 'Anti-pollution fault', it has had a diagnostic carried out twice (garage mechanic 3 weeks ago and Green Flag mechanic less than 24 hours ago), the first time it happened it did not initially affect the cars performance before/after once the faults were cleared and drove happily for next few weeks.

But on Tuesday (26th Nov 2019), the car started to stall when his foot was taken off accelerator to brake at junctions etc. From this he called Green Flag, a contract mechanic arrived and said the fault were pointing at coil pack and 2 sensors were showing possible problems as well (unfortunately my dad being 77 did not ask which sensors)..

I fitted a new coil pack (today), made no difference, the car still stalls when it should idle , and the revs are capped at 4000rpm with throttle flat to floor.

I've researched and spoke to others and have possible thoughts that the lambada sensor either pre or post Cat maybe at fault.... again it looks like a third visit to diagnostics is required.

As money is a issue as they're both pensioners I trying to sort this issue the best way financially as possible..

Any Ideas please would be gratefully received..

[GiveMeABreak]

Hi and welcome.

I understand your situation, but with these sorts of things, you really need to have the fault codes. - The engine management system will give you good clues as to what the issue (s) are, but without these you could end up throwing money away by replacing parts unnecessarily.

If you can get the fault codes read (preferably by someone with a Lexia) that will allow us to get a full explanation of the faults. There is no magic clearing of faults and away you go - that's ridiculous. A fault is there for a reason and is triggered because of a series of events / conditions. These may be temporary or permanent - which will depend on the conditions for the fault to self-clear. But if the underlying issue is not resolved, the fault will come back again.

Any issues with the engine management system and the ECU will limit engine revs to about 3000 RPM - but 4000 RPM? - that's near the engine limit anyway!

I'm not going to speculate without a fault code, but depollution issues can be down to the oxygen sensors playing up or faulty - but again pure speculation.