Rough running, stalling and erratic idle cured by throttle body cleaning
Our Vauxhall Meriva was beginning to run a little roughly and occasionally stalling when ticking over.
I had a good idea that the throttle body may be dirty and so decided to give it a clean.
I have done this many times before on different vehicles and usually remove the throttle body to clean it as in one of my previous videos of the cleaning process done to my Mazda 6.
This time I thought I would show this alternative way of cleaning the throttle body which is to leave it on the car and show this alternative way in a new video.
You may have seen my recentpost and video about me changing the gear linkage on my Vauxhall Meriva.
Vauxhall Meriva linkage repair video
The gear linkage found on Vauxhall / Opel cars in general is a well known weak spot which WILL fail, sometimes in just a few thousand miles as shown by huge demand for both original spec replacement parts and uprated items made by various aftermarket manufacturers.
Now this got me thinking, Why when so many millions and millions of pounds are spent on development and testing with modern vehicles do all manufacturers still have one or two components that always fail prematurely when the rest of the vehicle is in general very reliable.
The parts that fail are usually fairly simple parts but if you actually take a look at the items yourself you can usually see that it is obviously very poorly designed and very cheaply manufactured and you begin to wonder what were they thinking and why did they not find out about this when they do their extensive testing.
This part, the gear linkage on Vauxhall / Opel cars is a small and cheap item but when it fails it causes the car to be undrivable and can ruin the reputation of the whole or the company's range of vehicles past and present.
I just dont understand why for the sake of maybe an extra £10 on the cost of a new car that a company would risk many millions of pounds of profit from lost sales due to them gaining a reputation as a manufacturer of poorly made unreliable vehicles when in reality for what is effectively a negligible extra cost they could be known for their reliability and reap the benefits this reputation would bring.
Is it just me that thinks this way or do you feel the same.
Whilst driving my wife's Meriva the other day I began to think about Vauxhall / Opel cars in general and whether they were actually any good.
My recent experiences with driving Vauxhall Opel vehicles include :-
Vauxhall Insignia 2.0 Diesel - 3 years old 56000 miles - My old company car
Vauxhall Insignia 2.0 Diesel eco - New 56 miles - My new company car
Vauxhall Astra 1.3 Diesel eco - New 24000 miles - Company pool car
Vauxhall Meria 1.8 Petrol - 9 years old 122000 miles - Wife's runabout
Vauxhall Corsa 1.0 Petrol - 14 years old 120000 miles - Sons car
Vauxhall Meriva 1.3 Diesel - 4 years old 23000 miles - Friends car
Vauxhall Vectra 2.0 Petrol - 5 years old 45000 miles - Friends car
As you can see I have driven a few Vauxhalls over the last few years and my first overriding impression is that they have on the whole been reliable, comfortable, economical and generally good value.
I have also come to the conclusion that they all feel the same. Now I dont know if this is a good thing or not but apart from the size they could all be the same car with the same controls and running gear just in different size body.
So if they are all the same car but with different body sizes then I think vauxhall should rename the models to reflect this so my suggestions for new vauxhall model designations are as follows :-
Agila = Tiny Car
Addam = Tiny Car 2
Corsa = Small Car
Meriva = Small and Tall Car
Astra = Medium Car
Zafira = Large and Tall car
Cascadia = Small and Low car
Insignia = Large Car
Mokka = Small and Tall Car 2
Antra = Medium and Tall Car
Corsa Van = Small Van
Combo Van = Medium Van
Vivaro Van = Large Van
Mivano = Xtra Large Van
No need to test drive them, If you have driven one Vauxhall in the last 10 years you will know what all the others feel like as they are all basically the same.
Now as I said before is this necessarily a bad thing, I don't think so but what do you think ?
Vauxhall Meriva power steering fault causing loss of power assistance and EPS light to come on the dashboard.
Well it has happened sooner than I thought, Our Meriva has had the dreaded EPS light and power steering fault that so many Meriva owners have reported.
My wife was driving and as she pulled out of a junction she lost all power assistance to the steering sending her into the oncoming lane narrowly avoiding a serious accident.
The fault is easily cleared by turning off the ignition and restarting the car but that is only a tempory solution as this can re occur at any time, it could be days, weeks or months but it will happen again.
The fault is a well known one and it appears to be caused by an over pressure on the power steering pump when on full steering lock. It is such a common fault that it was even the subject of a BBC Watchdog TV program.
Now some owners have had to pay for a replacement steering column and others seem to have been offered a free replacement under warranty by Vauxhall themselves even on older high mileage cars.
Now my Meriva is 10 years old and high milage so I dont think I will have much luck with a warranty claim but I am willing to give it a try so I will contact Vauxhall directly at the weekend and see what response I get and I will update this post with the results.
Fixing a Vauxhall / Opel Corsa B, Meriva, Tigra or Combo Van Gearbox Linkage.
Sloppy gear changes or loosing gears is a common problem on smaller Vauxhalls such as Corsa B, Meriva Tigra and Combo Vans and my Meriva is no exception.
I bought this Meriva car cheaply knowing the gears were very "loose" and "vague" and a quick test drive proved this to be true but all the gears were in there and when you found one it went in easily and smoothly enough, all this was a sure sign that the clutch and gearbox itself were fine but there was so much play that you were never sure which one you had found.
These symptoms were a classic sign of a worn gear linkage, a fairly cheap and not to difficult fix so I was not worried about it and planned to change the linkage in the near future.
Well the near future has become now as the other day my wife called me to say the car will not go into reverse any more and she gave me the lecture about " if you had done it straight away like you said you would instead of leaving it she would have been able to drive to the shops instead of getting the bus, you always leave things instead of doing them ....... etc, etc, etc"
So I suppose I had better get on with it or I will never get any peace.
How I did It
This is a step by step guide to how I did it
I will be adding more pictures and a link to my Youtube video soon
The Parts I Ordered
There are simple service kits you can buy for less than £10 but to save some time and effort I ordered the complete upgraded linkage as the picture below for less than £30 saving me about an hour of stripping cleaning and rebuilding the old linkage
The old linkage removed from the car showing
the black plastic link bar
New gear linkage with upgraded metal bar replacing the original plastic part
This is the same linkage on all Vauxhall / Opel corsa, Meriva, Tigra and Combo vans
The upgraded linkage comes with a metal rod instead of the plastic part of the original and this new linkage should last the lifetime of the car.
Step 1
You need to gain access to the top of the gearbox and remove the pin connecting the linkage to the gear selector. In theory this is the easiest bit just pull it out from the top and this can just take 10 seconds to do but I have had one where the wire spring has bent and due to the limited access it has been virtually impossible to get enough force or leverage to remove it taking 2 or 3 hours just to remove a simple pin so be prepared, buy a new pin when you order the linkage and get ready to butcher the old one if need be to get it out.
Step 2
Remove the retaining cap from the pivot point by bending back the 4 small plastic tabs with a small screwdriver, it will spin round so you can get to each one, and then lift it off.
Step 3
Undo the bolt on the clamp that holds the bar from the gear selector to the end of the linkage and slide the linkage off the bar. The top nut is welded to the linkage and you need to remove the bolt downwards from under the clamp. This is so much easier to do if you can access the bolt from underneath but it can be done from above if you can get your hand in there and work by feel as you wont be able to see it once your arm is in there. If you think you can do it from above then you will have to get your hand in and feel underneath first as it could be a normal bolt head or an allen key type.
Step 4
Lift the whole linkage assembly of the pivot and maneuver it out of the engine bay, it is a tight fit but it will come out.
Step 5
Before you start to fit the new linkage if you have the upgraded linkage with the metal rod just check the length if the rod and adjust it if necessary so it is the same length as the old one you have just removed.
Step 6
Refitting is the reverse of removal but you need to set up the new linkage before you finally tighten everything up.
Step 7
Setting up the linkage before finally tightening everything up.
Setting the gear linkage up is easy 1. Ensure the bolt on the linkage that holds the shaft from the gear lever is loose. 2. On the front of the gear selector box on top of the gearbox you will see a small yellow spring loaded button. You need to gently push this button in whilst wriggling the gear selector linkage and when you manage to get the linkage between 1st and 2nd gear the button will slide in and stay in. 3. Now go inside the car and lift the gear lever boot around the gear lever 4. You will see a 4mm hole to the left of the lever and a corresponding hole in the black plastic reverse gear stop. You need to line up these two holes and drop a bolt or small pozi screwdriver in the holes to lock the lever in place. 5. Now go back to the engine bay and check the button is still in. If it is then tighten up the bolt on the gear selector shaft and wriggle the linkage and gently pull the yellow button until it pops out.
And thats it, you are done and you should now have a much crisper and more accurate gear change that will make your car a pleasure to drive once again.
I have been looking for a cheap car to replace the Mazda 6 that my wife used to own.
This was recently written of in an accident and she needed a new car quickly so I told her to decide what sort of car she wanted this time.
After a bit of thought this is the list of things she wanted in her new car.
Something smaller than the Mazda 6
More economical than the Mazda
Cheap to buy
Room for 5 adults
A good size boot
Does not have to be sporty but not to "frumpy"
Not to old
Not a Diesel
So basically she wanted something smaller and easier to park in town but still have enough room for 5 adults and a big boot and be more economical to run than the Mazda.
After a quick look around she settled on a cheap 8 year old Vauxhall Meriva Design 1.8 ltr petrol in blue.
I had a quick look at it for her and although it was high mileage ( 122,000 miles ) it was a good runner with no nasty noises and it was very cheap.
It did need a bit of a tidy up and a few minor mechanical and cosmetic repairs but that didn't matter because, as she said "It was very cheap and obviously I could do all the bits that needed doing to it for free anyway" !
So I thought I would document on this blog my experiences running and repairing a cheap vauxhall vehicle good or bad.
