Hello everybody

I have a 2nd hand Ford Fiesta 1.6, 2010 model (titanium) with 73,000 km on the clock, South Africa.

Everything was running smoothly up until a couple of months ago when we ran into some faulty engine trouble, and I was wondering if anybody could help me diagnose the problem before I budget to fix this car.

When the engine is idling on a cold start, the rev's seem to fluctuate very oddly, up and down. Coupled with this, is a very strong smell of petrol at which I assumed was because of the catalytic converter, however I am not sure. Around a month ago I noticed that if I rev the car while the engine is still cold, strange black spots seem to spew out of the exhaust, all which fixes up when the engine has warmed up. We're worried it may be the automatic choke feeding the engine too much petrol when it is warming up.

This, however, isn't my biggest concern. One day when driving around my town, I experienced a sudden big drop in power while a messaged appeared "Engine fault, service now." This is an intermittent problem, which is why I am unable to pick up on what it might be. After switching the car off for a while and back on again, the problem seems to disappear. This has happened to me about three times in the past months. The car literally runs perfectly up until the message appears, what could possibly cause an instant drop in power, that suddenly fixes after time?

The car is still 7000km's off of it's next service, which is why I am afraid to do anything drastic. Am I wrong in assuming it may be a faulty spark plug which resulted in a sudden drop in power? Or perhaps the computer box has a fault. Either way, I think this car just plainly needs a service even though it was only purchased earlier this year.

I really hope somebody can help. Thank you for your time!

Brad

It could be so many things, its hard to diagnose from the symptoms you give. Yes it could be a faulty spark plug. Have you removed them to see if any of them are wet with fuel?

You really need to get a garage put a code reader on it to read the cause of your engine fault light. That will point you in the right direction. Just another couple of points. Modern cars don't have choke. They are all fuel injected. Secondly, the time from its last service is immaterial. Things will go wrong at any time. Hope you get it fixed.