Just wondered if anyone on here had experienced the same problem as I have and how to correct it? My car is a 51 plate saloon, I bought the car off of the original owner 5 years ago when it had 16k on the clock - it has now covered 47k with regular oil changes every 5k. Just over a year ago the engine management light started to flash on for a short period 2-3 days or so and then go off but there was little or no difference in how the car performed so I thought that it was nothing to worry about, on one of these occasions the light came on and stopped on though and it has been like it ever since, at about this time I first noticed the problem - which I can only describe as the same sort of fault that you get on older cars when a HT lead is on its way out - the car starts fine every time, is fine on tick over and acts normally when driving most of the time, however occasionally when you try to give it some welly there is a lack of power along with a miss-fire and a very sick sounding engine - if you then take your foot off of the accelerator and depress it more progressively the car responds normally! When this first started to happen I was advised that the Irschmer back box was knackered and restricting the exhaust gasses so I decided to change the exhaust for a Magnex 4" oval back box with straight through pipe and added a K and N panel filter with modified air intake - result was the same problem but with a nicer louder sound!! I then took the car to a so called reputable car mechanic who charged me £30 and recommended that I change either the plugs or the coil pack - changed the plugs but this had no affect! I have since heard that this problem could also be caused by the air control valve or something? Before I go and splash out on either one of these or a coil pack has anyone any idea of which I should go for? What makes it even more confusing is that the car has passes 2 MOT emission tests whilst running like this?
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated - thanks.