For Idle Problems Try This

  1. #1
    My car was off the road there for a few month trying to fix an idle problem which is now fixed which i will talk about more below, I thought i would post this to help others on what the problem could be which is a whole list and you will be surprised when you get to the end and see how i solved this problem

    First i shall tell you how the problem occurred it started when my battery died and i had to jump start the car, The car started reving on idle between 3 and 5k and just decided randomly where it would sit stuck at. I have a 52 plate VTR by the way some models will differ.

    So here is all the things i tried:

    First on all i tried what any other sensible person would do a was to search this very helpful forum and found this guide:

    http://www.saxperience.com/forum/sho...valve+cleaning

    in this guide it shows you how to remove and clean the ICV (idle control valve) with carb cleaner, which in my case never worked

    The next port of call was for me to do a 24hr ECU reset when you remove both terminals off the battery and leave which should reset the ECU

    this also never worked for me so i tried the ignition on/off trick to try reset the ICV which goes like ignition on - off repeat 6 times and turn the engine on the 7th time

    This made the car work a bit better sitting between 3 and 3.5k revs, so i tried another trick with the key and that was the TPS reset (throttle position sensor) which is ignition on leave 10 secs then off and repeat 4 times and then turn engine on

    this made no difference so upon further searching i decided it had to be another sensor at fault so there was only 2 that i thought it could be which were the MAP (mass absolute pressure) and coolant temp sensor so i changed both of these, the MAP sensor is located on the front left of the inlet manifold and the coolant temp is the top one on the thermostat housing to the right of the rocker cover. Both of these never solved the problem

    i then went on to think it could be a battery or alternator problem so i had a friend bring a multimeter round and i checked the battery with engine off and was 12. something which means it was fine then started the engine and it was above 14. something so that means the battery is being charged from the alternator.

    I then went on for some more searching on this forum and found that the throttle body on a Mk2 98BHP engine actually wasn't part of the inlet manifold and it actually came out so a took that off and cleaned it with carb cleaner and put back together making sure the o ring was back in place, this also never worked so i was at my wits end and due to sell the car

    Until i read more about what an actual stepper motor (ICV) actually was it was like a wee pulsating bit of metal on a spring which opened up to let more air in when needed. So when i took the ICV off i realised it was stick fully in and it needed to be all the way out so i pulled it out slowly and greased the shaft and put it back in and now it started up and idled fine, i then took it a drive over 50 miles and was working perfectly fine.

    I also forgot to mention above after trying any of these things from ecu reset to putting in new sensors the car will need a long drive over 8 miles holding the revs above 3k as much as possible to calibrate the new or old parts if its an ecu reset

    i just thought this may be a help to anyone who has this or a similar problem and even though i did by parts i never needed like the map sensor and coolant sensor they only cost me 35 quid from my local motor shop like europarts so it never really cost to much anyways
  2. #2
    i have a mk1 vtr and having the exsacty same problem im going to try this out thak you your a legend im litrally on the same page just about to sell the car after replacing everythink cheers.ketch
  3. #3
    Legend works a treat
  4. #4
    thanks for this, see now i have a slightly different problem,

    My vtr struggles to kick in first thing in the morning, its starts then dies, starts then i rev it, it dies, then 3rd or 4th attempt, after holding it on revs it settles and i wont have that problem for the rest of the day??