Vectra 1.6 petrol, 2000 Cuts out when revs drop,

[ljones60]

Hi.

A mate of mine is having trouble with his Vectra 1600cc petrol.  It cut out on him the other day when he came to a junction at a roundabout.  it started again but constantly cut out on the remainder of his 1 1/2 mile journey to work.  He called the RAC and got told that a common fault with the vectra is the Idle Control Valve.  He told me  that he has never noticed the engine management light come on.   

He put the car into a garage and they read the fault codes which pointed to the o2 sensors.  They replaced both sensors, a manifold gasket, and the spark plugs.  He mentioned to them that the RAC man said about the idle control valve and they told him that it wasn't that, however from reading on this forum it seems like a common problem with vectra's.  If it is the control valve is this an easy fix (buy a new one and fit it) or does the ECU need to be reprogrammed. 

Any help greatly appreciated as he's not sure what to do next.

thanks

L jones

[paragon]

I'm a bit confused about this one, some more detail would be good.

For one thing as I am aware on this year the car should only have one oxygen sensor fitted and not two.

Also is the engine 16 valve or 8 valve and an engine code would be great because some have egr and some don't.

There are some common things to look out for but I will give you more details when I know exactly which engine type you have.

[ljones60]

I've just phoned my mate.  He stated that it is a 16v engine, and that the garage billed him for 2 oxygen sensors when he picked it up.  He is going to phone back later with the engine code cause he's not sure until he gets home.

regards

L Jones

[paragon]

O/k, well I'm fairly certain that this engine only has one sensor so you would need to check because this garage could be pulling a fast one.

The 1.8 16v engine in this model did suffer from a stalling concern which has a recognised fix. (I have posted this previously). The 1.6 has a different throttle body though and the usuall suspect is very dirty or knacker-ed idle control valve.

This engine also suffers very badly from egr valve faults which can lead to all sorts of running faults but there is a fix for this.

Basically you can buy a modified egr gasket which blanks the hole from the inlet manifold to the egr valve. You then update the engine ecu with the latest software which turns the egr valve off at the ecu so as not to log any fault codes.

Check these first then post back with your results/findings.

[ljones60]

thanks.

will post more info when i get it.