Clio idles at 2000rpm on cold start and throttle pedal doesnt work. Once restarted it's fine.

[alistairolsen]

So my clio starts from cold and idles at 2000 rpm and the the throttle pedal doesnt do anything at all. If i let it run for a little while, shut it off and restart it, it's perfect.

Once its sorted, the throttle works fine, and it idles fine, suggesting its not an issue with the throttle pedal, throttle body or any of the idle control parts.

How does the warmup strategy work? I'm aware there is a cold rev limiter. Could it be a faulty temperature sensor or similar?

Thanks

 

[R3k1355]

Have you read fault codes?

 

[Amos91]

If you unplug the throttle body it will automatically run at 2k rpm, so I wouldn't be ruling out a fault when cold in either the throttle pedal or throttle body.

 

[alistairolsen]

Ahh, so it's potentially a limp strategy due to the throttle body not behaving when cold - which would make sense with it working when warmed a little (throttle pedal doesnt get warm that quickly). Good to know!

Not managed to get codes yet, my CLIP for my old clio needs 32 bit XP which I no longer have, so going to visit a mate with a snap on scanner.

 

[alistairolsen]

So the codes were:

257 Throttle Valve position sensor
293 Supply after relay

293 seems to pertain to a lack of power after the fuel pump/coil relay, and since it runs, I'm going to assume this is a historic code.

257 seems to have many possible causes and fixes:

Faulty throttle body
Faulty/Damaged wiring
Wiring for sensors run alongside battery live cable
Corrosion in fusebox
Loss of calibration

But in all the threads I've found, its been in limp, whereas this starts in limp and a little while later can be shut off and restarted and it's then perfect. To me that has to be an ECU condition or heat related, if it was a wiring fault it would be random and intermittant whereas this is predictable and likewise if the TB was faulty it would have issues in normal driving.

I'm not sure where to look next. Does anyone know enough about the ECU to understand how it behaves in cold start?

Thanks

 

[alistairolsen]

So this morning it was colder (-4) and it decided not to start. After a couple of tries, it would only crank for 5 seconds at a time. Connected another car with jump leads to stabilise the voltage and it went back to cranking normally, so I assume the ECU cuts the starter when the voltage drops too low whilst cranking.

I tried warming the throttle body with a fan heater and then warming the whole engine bay with the bonnet closed, but neither made any difference. I also removed all the relays in the box to the right of the battery, cleaned the terminals and refitted them with some WD40.

Ended up leaving it at home and stealing the Mrs car to get to work.