A misfire followed by a different sound on the highway in France.

I left the office one sunny afternoon to shoot home for lunch, but when I started the car all did not bode well. It felt like the car was firing on 3 cylinders and it would not rev over 2000rpm. The obligatory pop of the bonnet ensued, but what was I expecting to find under there! A couple of phone calls later and the flat bed was booked. I then went to have another look and the car started fine and seemed normal. Took the car home and canceled the flat bed. Needless to say when I jumped in to go back to the office the gremlins had returned.

Helen took me to work and when I got home later the car started fine and I had no problems getting it to the dealer. Of course it was not booked in so it was a couple of days before they had time to look at it. I asked them to do an inspection II service while they had. I got the call to say that one of the injectors was shot so that was ordered. I had mentioned that it had dot 5.1 brake fluid in so please not to change. But the car had an ABS sensor that had intermittently been throwing up a fault so I got a call in the afternoon when I was due to pick it up, saying that they do not stock dot 5.1 fluid and did I want them to use regular fluid or could I get some down to them. Needless to say I was slightly stranded so I will now need to get the fluid changed to dot 5.1 before the track day on the 2nd of August.

Got the car back and pottering around the island the car just did not feel right. I could not put my finger on it . The car was also quite rough when cold and it almost felt like before I had it remapped. Once it was warm it seemed ok but I was wondering if the dealer had put the map back to standard or something. That concludes the misfire part of the story.

It was then time for our annual trip to France with all of Helen’s family and after leaving St Malo I once again had that niggling feeling that things where not all as they should be. The car just felt flat and when accelerating out of the toll gates it felt slightly slower. Once at speed when accelerating in 6th gear to over take it even sounded a bit different.

When we got down to the South of France the next day, I popped the bonnet and was greeted by a bit of the orange air filter element sticking out of the side of the airbox. The two clips on the one side where not seated properly and the air filter was wedged between the 2 halves of the air box preventing it sealing. Once Tony and I got the air box sealed back properly and I took it for a drive all was well again. Goes to show it always pays to have a check under the bonnet!