Hi all . I am new to this club so please be patient . 

I'll start from the beginning 

I have twin boys who just turned 1 . One of them has additional needs. So my civic became impractical. 

As a single parent I scraped together everything I could to get a bigger car so that his specialist chair can fit in that he needs for nursery. 

So I found a 2013 smax tdci on within my budget and it was 3500 managed to knock him down a couple of hundred.  This was my first private sale so I was nervous. I did a enhanced check on the car no issues with any cat or thefts etc. 

When I went to see the car it looked just as it was advertised. I was aware of its advisorys on the mot, drive shafts no biggie don't them before . 

Checked the oil, checked engine bay everything I could see. Under the car for any leaks. 

Took it for a test drive ran sweet as a nut no issues at all no lights on the dash . It's a automatic the shift changes where extremely smooth. 

The car was better than I was expecting so the deal was made. 

 

However driving home in it that's when the engine management light came on and it said engine malfunction . Yet the engine sounds fine . But I noticed when I put my foot down I would get a noise as if air is escaping and its not as nippy as I would habe expected for a 2L tdci. My 1.8 civic is quite a bit faster granted its not as heavy but I wouldn't habe expected the smax to be as slow as it is when putting my foot down.  Could this possibly be a vacuum leak somewhere? If so could this affect the performance and cause the noise I mentioned earlier ? 

 

Another thing that popped up on the fashion was child lock failure both the back doors will not lock when pressing the button on the fob , could this be caused by a fuse or is  something more sinister going on. 

I was really looking forward to been able to meet all the needs my boys have finally  but this has just caused me nothing but worry and its only been a few hours 

I dread to think what else could pop up when I plug it in . 

I know when going private have next to no come back regardless I thought would try my luck and get back in touch with the person I got it from but I'm getting ignored who would have guessed it huh. 

I only have 600 left of everything I have so I'm hoping the problems are not major

 

Please could someone offer some guidance  

 

Thank you so much 

 

Phil 

32 minutes ago, tribalphil said:

Please could someone offer some guidance  

Get rid of the car

9 hours ago, tribalphil said:

Please could someone offer some guidance ...

I know @unofix sounds harsh, but I fear that unwittingly you may have bought a 'lemon'. As you know, a 'private' sale you have virtually no come back at all, and especially when you have limited knowledge of cars, it's wise to pay for an AA/RAC inspection. You are past that now, and will be stuck with a car that will likely give you a tough time in ownership. 

I would give serious thought to 'recycling' it on the market again. At the very least, take it to a decent independent garage, and get their opinion on the current faults you have...

Well them words hit hard lol. 

 

Unfortunately it is what it is I'm on a very tight budget and got what I could with what I had.  

 

However I did a few other basic checks today , I'll know more when I send it to the garage for a look over.

I have given him the heads up and he going to give it a full going over for me. 

The codes I am able to read at the moment are all pointing at the mass air sensor, that's no biggie . 

I thought I would check the wires all look fine obviously I'm not a auto electrician. 

I did mention in my first post I hear a noise like a whooshing like air escaping from somewhere , I took the air box out and noticed it doesn't have the piece of pipe going from the front of the car to the air box could this be the noise I am hearing. I will be replacing thay piece . 

As for the doors it's just the one door that doesn't lock nor does the window go down as its doing neither I think could be a wire problem fingers crossed on that one 

It's a power shift and earlier when I put my foot down it took off like a rocket and the engine sounds sweet as a nut no unwanted jumps of rattles apart from the whooshing. 

But I have accepted what could be wrong . I know that's the price I pay for going private. But at this moment I feel quite optimistic now I have given it a good drive 

 

Thanks 

 

A whooshing sound and MAF codes usually just means one of the turbo pipes is split or loose.  They are fairly cheap to replace, but can be awkward to access.

On 6/22/2024 at 8:45 AM, StephenFord said:

I know @unofix sounds harsh, but I fear that unwittingly you may have bought a 'lemon'. As you know, a 'private' sale you have virtually no come back at all, and especially when you have limited knowledge of cars, it's wise to pay for an AA/RAC inspection. You are past that now, and will be stuck with a car that will likely give you a tough time in ownership. 

I would give serious thought to 'recycling' it on the market again. At the very least, take it to a decent independent garage, and get their opinion on the current faults you have...

I noticed that the pipe going from the front of the car to the air box was missing. So I replaced that along with the maf sensor and the engine management light went off . Funny enough the back door started working again . 

 

However when I out my foot down on the accelerators goes to 4k revs then kicks me to 3k rev. Could this be the dpf as it drives sweet as a but until I put my foot down . 

 

It's in the garage tomorrow to look for leaks and give it a once over . 

 

Other than that the car runs sweet as a nut