Hi everyone.

My 1991 214si has developed a misfire. It starts fine, and will run for a few miles, then starts to hesitate a little. Soon after, it starts to misfire, soon after that it will become undriveable and stall.

I have noticed some brown sludge in the coolant, which made me think head gasket, or would it misfire all the time if that was the case? The oil on the dipstick looks ok, and I dont think its losing oil or coolant (certianly not in any quantity).

Am I on the right track here or should I suspect a sensor/ecu or other misc fault?

Any suggestions are gratefully received.

Brown sludge may be just down to the age of the car.

If it has a crank sensor then I would put my money on this.

It's really difficult to say without driving the car myself but I think this may be an ignition fault rather than the dreaded HG.

The HG would manifest itself as steam from the exhaust/coolant loss/water in oil/oil in water/loss of power.

These symptoms wouldn't always be in that sequence and not all HGF's give the same symptoms, either.

Thanks, that has reassured me. Hopefully it was just me being paranoid when I saw the brown stuff in the coolant. I have cleaned the CAS and changed the fuel filter. Hopefully that has sorted it, but I won't know until I can take it on a good run.

Cheers.
Gary
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1991 214si

[Edited by tilyhi on 09-05-2002 at 10:57 PM GMT]