Vauxhall Corsa-C Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Common Mechanical Problems

178K views 40 replies 32 participants last post by  ozsubrosa 
#1 · (Edited)
I've decided to make this thread as there are countless threads asking the same questions about the same threads so thought it would be a good idea to have them all in one easy to read thread.


Gear Linkage

Symptoms

Difficulty getting the car into first, second and sometimes reverse gears.

What causes it?

The ball joint of the linkage is made of a rubbish plastic material that just simply wears down until it pops out of the joint. Making you unable to engage any gears.

How can it be fixed?

Depending on your mechanical knowledge you can try to follow this tutorial to get the parts and fit a new one yourself

Ebay Link:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CORSA-C-TIGRA...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item5acee20885

Tutorial:
http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=185725

Or take it to the garage, not an expensive job, I wouldnt expect to pay anymore than £50


Oil Pressure Switch Failure

Symptoms

Oil pressure warning light showing on your dash board. Oil squirting out of your engine under pressure whilst the engine runs.

What causes it?

Basically poor design, they just fail. Could happen at 2k miles or 80k miles.

How can it be fixed?

Very simply. Buy the part from your local VX dealer (P/N - 93190643 and price £5.45)

Simply unclip the electrical wiring at the back of the switch, put a rag under it to stop and more oil pooring over your engine when you unbolt it. Unbolt it, clean the mating faces for the new one. PLace the seal on the new one and bolt it back on to a torque loading of 20Nm/15lb.ft and reconnect the wire.

Location of the oil pressure switch in the engine bay


Oil Pressure Switch



Timing Chain Tensioner

Symptoms

A very tappy engine. Sounding like a sewing machine or a diesel

What causes it?

Again poor design. The timing chain of an engine should last the life of the enginer, but the tensioner that ensures it stays tight to the cogs begins to reduce the tension held of on the chain, causing it to slack and rattle and tap.

How can it be fixed?

Technically, it doesnt require fixing, as it isnt broke. But to get rid of that awful sound you will need to change the tensioners for the timing chain. But from personal experience the amount of work required to do this you may as well changed the hole timing chain while your at it.

There isnt a tutorial for this and it would take me hours to do a full write up for the job so i would highly reccomend not attempting it yourself unless you know what your doing.

I've seen quotes for garages to do it ranging from £200 - £700!!!!!!!

Lots of information in here, some of it complete rubbish though

http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=213197

Videos of mine in this thread before and after doing it to show what it sounds like and what it is supposed to sound like.

http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=235968


Air Flow Sensor

Note:Never experienced this myself, just information I have picked out of other threads so don't hold me to it.

Symptoms

Engine Management warning light showing on your dash. Engine struggles for power intermitently, will be ok for a bit, then struggle again.

What causes it?

Who knows? Just one of them things. They fail

How can it be fixed?

They can be purchased from VX for around £90. But obviously try the bay and/or a scrappy. Fitting is simple, just a case of remove and replace.

Or obviously to take it to a mechanic and pay him to do it.

Location:


Please add any information or a fault you have had and keep it simple and easy to read
Also try and avoid pointless posts to make the information easier for people to find
 
See less See more
3
#4 ·
I've decided to make this thread as there are countless threads asking the same questions about the same threads so thought it would be a good idea to have them all in one easy to read thread.


Gear Linkage

Symptoms

Difficulty getting the car into first, second and sometimes reverse gears.

What causes it?

The ball joint of the linkage is made of a rubbish plastic material that just simply wears down until it pops out of the joint. Making you unable to engage any gears.

How can it be fixed?

Depending on your mechanical knowledge you can try to follow this tutorial to get the parts and fit a new one yourself

Ebay Link:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CORSA-C-TIGRA...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item5acee20885

Tutorial:
http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=185725

Or take it to the garage, not an expensive job, I wouldnt expect to pay anymore than £50


Oil Pressure Switch Failure

Symptoms

Oil pressure warning light showing on your dash board. Oil squirting out of your engine under pressure whilst the engine runs.

What causes it?

Basically poor design, they just fail. Could happen at 2k miles or 80k miles.

How can it be fixed?

Very simply. Buy the part from your local VX dealer (P/N - 93190643 and price £5.45)

Simply unclip the electrical wiring at the back of the switch, put a rag under it to stop and more oil pooring over your engine when you unbolt it. Unbolt it, clean the mating faces for the new one. PLace the seal on the new one and bolt it back on to a torque loading of 20Nm/15lb.ft and reconnect the wire.

Location of the oil pressure switch in the engine bay


Oil Pressure Switch



Timing Chain Tensioner

Symptoms

A very tappy engine. Sounding like a sewing machine or a diesel

What causes it?

Again poor design. The timing chain of an engine should last the life of the enginer, but the tensioner that ensures it stays tight to the cogs begins to reduce the tension held of on the chain, causing it to slack and rattle and tap.

How can it be fixed?

Technically, it doesnt require fixing, as it isnt broke. But to get rid of that awful sound you will need to change the tensioners for the timing chain. But from personal experience the amount of work required to do this you may as well changed the hole timing chain while your at it.

There isnt a tutorial for this and it would take me hours to do a full write up for the job so i would highly reccomend not attempting it yourself unless you know what your doing.

I've seen quotes for garages to do it ranging from £200 - £700!!!!!!!

Lots of information in here, some of it complete rubbish though

http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=213197

Videos of mine in this thread before and after doing it to show what it sounds like and what it is supposed to sound like.

http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=235968


Air Flow Sensor

Note:Never experienced this myself, just information I have picked out of other threads so don't hold me to it.

Symptoms

Engine Management warning light showing on your dash. Engine struggles for power intermitently, will be ok for a bit, then struggle again.

What causes it?

Who knows? Just one of them things. They fail

How can it be fixed?

They can be purchased from VX for around £90. But obviously try the bay and/or a scrappy. Fitting is simple, just a case of remove and replace.

Or obviously to take it to a mechanic and pay him to do it.

Location:


Please add any information or a fault you have had and keep it simple and easy to read
Also try and avoid pointless posts to make the information easier for people to find

please help...see my thread cdti missfire????
 
#7 ·
Please add any information or a fault you have had and keep it simple and easy to read
Also try and avoid pointless posts to make the information easier for people to find
the fault list for the corsas is as long as my arm..

wishbone bushes/ball joints
droplinks
cv boot seals
handbrake cables
clocks
chain gasket
clutch
gearbox mount
+above + others ive forgotten
heater matrix
water in passenger footwell ( BCM box )
water in driver footwell ( Heater matrix or Brake servo seal )

Knock yourselves out
 
#12 ·
thx for this! cars been leaking oil alll over the drive and now i know what part its coming from. The Oil pressure switch. its quite a big leak tbh. gonna get a new switch and get a lovely man to do it for me :D Anyone know how much it would cost to get repaired if theres a blockage aswell??
 
#14 ·
can i just say ive recently experience this problem, i thought it was the black plastic arm that goes into the two nipples on the gear linkage at fault as it was having trouble getting into 2nd gear, which was the only trouble i had, the rest of the gears were fine, it was just second which was getting very stiff/hard to get into, so i decided to change it,

i broke off the old one on my car as i bought a new metal one as people were saying this was the fault, fitted the metal one, and then i had to align my gears as it was all wrong, first and second needed the reverse lifting style to get it into first, 3 4 and 5th were all good, reverse was a bit hard to get into, hit and miss, then took it to vauxhall, said they couldnt realign it as it was impossible and that it would cost 120 for the new linkage, and 1+1/2 hrs labor charges, got charged 1/2 hr to just get it checked and to be told they couldnt do nothing about it which was 40.00 for nothing,


went to get my car's alignment done as the tracking was pulling left, whilst there, i told the man about my gear problems as they would be driving the car back and fourth, they said we can align it simply by undoing the bolt and having a play with it, 30 mins later said the car was done, i had all my gears again and properly so i told them i was going to go back to the vauxhall stealer and complain about it, the company did it off thier own back as my car didnt go in for this, and charged me 18 pounds to get it realigned which was cheaper than vauxhall and faster than those monkeys they had there who said it was "impossible" to align,


went back to them, politely had a go at another man who said the original guy was on his "break" went back into thier garage to see if i can speak to him, but the same guy came back and said he couldnt find him but if i wanted a refund, i justified to the man why i thought i should have a full refund beings thier vauxhall mechanics couldnt do it, and these other guys who arent even vauxhall trained fixed it for me in less time and less money when it was apparently "impossible"



anyways got my refund and all was good,

until the other day when i was park outside, my mrs went out to move the car forward to put some stuff in the trunk, came back inside and told me, "Fred, the gear lever is floppy!!", i thought "what" went to see the lever, yeah real floppy like something had broken off, first thought was pop the hood to check the metal linkage arm i replaced, looked at it, was still connected, told my mrs to move the lever, she did whilst i looked under neath and noticed the plastic arm that has the black plastic tab on it was disconnected after looking at it closely as its very hard to see and tight in there, the ball joint poped off it and it was a biatch to get to, went to try to pop it back into its "plastic cup" thing, and it was hard, got the ball joint in where its closest to the passanger side of the car, it was easy but it was a bit loose again, and after much struggle, i managed to get the other harder ball joint back into its "plastic cup"


told my mrs to check it again, she did and i saw the lever move and she said it was like back to normal, checked it myself, drove around the block, of course scared as i didnt want it to pop off and with the struggle i had, i didnt want this on the side of the road,

so took it for a spin, was ok, but the gear lever still felt real loose, like it was going to pop off again, so i had this plan, i bought some heavy duty cable ties, placed one around the ball joint and slowly tightened it up, then placed another one going under the tie ive just did and around the other arm that the plastic cup is connected to, then tightned it up, again the one nearer the drivers side which is behind the engine is very tight to do, but managed to do it, and then did the same to the passanger side one, which was a little bit easier, what i basically did was make a pair of handcuffs for the joints, so that they both pull on each other to keep them together, it was the only idea i had at the time that was cheap and easy to do before it popped off again on the road which i wanted to avoid,

now when i did this, it tightened up the gear lever, and i can see it still has movement but not as much, and i feel a little bit better for "bodging" the job up as it will have to fight the cable ties first to be able to pop off its cups, where as before it had nothing stoping it from just poping off,


but now that ive found how to replace it and it looks pretty easy, ive ordered a modified linkage which looks metal instead of plastic, but more importantly, the ball joint design is gone, which should hopefully stop this from happening,

and i will replace it next tues/wed as ive got 2 days off, and the how to is top marks :thumbs:

also if i can say that ive also noticed my oil pressure switch mucked up with black sludge oil, knew it had to be a leak somewhere, didnt think it was the switch itself, but now that i know its not that expensive to fix, and how easy it is to replace, im going to replace it as well,

just wanted to say thank you for the tutorial, the how tos on the site, they are very helpful, vauxhall wanted to charge me loads of money, and this is a job i think anyone can do,

sorry for the long post, just wanted to get it off my chest, keep up the great work, shame on vauxhall especially the corsa for all the faults the car seems to have :angry:
 
#15 ·
update

just a bit of an update, i did my gear linkage without the use of my haynes manual, but by reading this tutorial over and over again, i basically remembered it fully step by step which is easy, and got the thing changed over without too much hassle,

i thought the pin would be the hard part, but that wasnt too bad, the black clip was a bit tricky, but after bending/breaking all the little tabs, i finally managed to pull it off, the bottom allen key was actually a torx bit, but as i didnt see it, i used my 6mm allen key socket set and it fitted and undid it easily,

putting the new one back on wasnt too bad either, as i marked the linkage rod so that i knew where abouts it needed to go, it made it a bit easier to get it back to where it was,

when i did it, i checked the car, and reverse seemed a bit tricky to get to, the rest of the gears were fine, on closer inspection, it turned out that the reverse was hitting the black plastic bit that you have to go onto to get reverse, so i thought i will put a 4mm drill bit which is a bit cr@p as it comes off easily, so i got a philips screw driver and fitted it onto the lever hole to lock it into place in neutral, then i undid the allen bolt again and was playing with it, pushing it in and pulling it out, trying all different ways of getting it right, and at first it was reverse with the problem, then it was a bit better, but first and second were a bit tricky to get into, i thought it was just needing to bed in, but i still wasnt happy, it was a bit too tricky for me to be happy about the job, so messed with it some more on the allen key bit and then i had no 4th or 5th gear, no matter what i tried it wasnt getting 4th or 5th, and i thought i wish i would have left it as it was before,

but then i remembered that the allen key bit was at a bit of an angle, so i turned the rod clock-wise so that it was fully turned, then i fitted it into the clamp and put it right to where i made the mark, which i can say you will have a silver patch where it fits into the clamp that stays a bit clean where as the rest of the rod will be a darker shade as its exposed to the elements, so easy to remember where you've had it before,

anyways whilst underneath the car, i pulled on the top lever towards the right as well, and did up the allen bolt to tighten up the clamp, told my mrs to check if we had 4th again, she went all through the gear range and said "ive got 4th and 5th", i said its not it will be second, so i got up and got into the car, checked it and sure enough, i had all my gears back to normal, man i was very happy as it was starting to worry me, checked it was all tight, and all good, and that was first job done,

second job was very easy, i uncliped my electrical connector, i cleaned it as it was very mucky with oil, then got my 24mm spanner, and undid it easily, took it off but had my rag ready as sure enough, a little bit of oil came out of it, cleaned the mating surface off, put some white tape onto the new oil sensor, which i got off ebay but instead of a blue one i got a black one with a new part number, so i think i got a revised version of this sensor, it cost a fiver to buy off ebay from vauxcentre and fast delivery, the linkage also from ebay brand new for 17.99 delivered which is the same as the one pictured above,

fitted my new sensor, tightened it up, connected the wiring clip, turned on the car, no oil light on so good, but i never had the oil light come up anyways so its not too bad, but its a little job done,

took the car for a spin, all gears felt perfect, i was very happy with this, it was a big part done for me and at least 250+ saved from my local vauxhall stealers to do both jobs which anyone can do,

ive got the old one still in the box i got my new one, and its just a cr@p design, useless junk if anyone wants me to take a pic of it to show the design and what happens or the problem points with it, i can upload the pics on here if it lets me,

i just wanted to say as well, the new linkage came with the black linkage plastic arm, which i didnt like as it was one of the only things plastic on the linkage, so i decided to take it off and fit my metal uprated one, so that the whole linkage is metal to metal, so hopefully it will last for the life of the car, as even though it was an easy job to do, its something you want to sort out once and for all,

again i just wanted to say well done on the tutorial :doublethumbs: you've saved me alot of money and time with the very helpful pics and steps, keep up the great work on this site, im sorry about the long post again, if anyone is suffering from this problem, id get on ebay and buy the kit and give yourself a couple of hours to do the job, and get on with it, its easier than it looks :)
 
#22 ·
hi there, sorry for the late reply, but ive had that too a couple of years ago, turned out to be the rear coil springs on my car, both went about the same time and i too had a piece of coil on the rear of my car, though u dont say where u found them, what i did was i found a set on ebay brand new lowering springs for my sxi pretty cheap so i bought them as changed them before the mot as they will fail, the rears are pretty easy to do, and the fronts arent too bad to do, but as said they will need doing for the mot not to mention the handling will be affected with the springs broken off,

good luck with it hope you sort it out :)
 
#25 ·
Originally Posted by KB04-CORSA
I have changed the Air Flow sensor on my car for a new one a few days ago and it has made the issue worse, anyone have any ideas why or what else it would be??
dunno if this is dangerous but i had this prob with my air flow meter in my 1.0 i simply unplugged it n left it and it has completely got rid of the problem with no apparent damage, later i completely removed the meter (only the tube peice on the intake) and fitted a new induction with shorter pipe. will post a pic if needed :)
 
#32 ·
Not ideal, ecu will switch to a safe mode which basically runs the car on a slightly rich fuel mixture which is safe but not good for fuel economy.
If you can't afford to replace it straight away try spraying the sensor element with carb cleaner. This often gets it reading properly again (do not touch the element as you will damage it!)
 
#30 ·
^^^ mate to be fair i would just buy a haynes and with the help of that and everyone on this forum, start doing bits by yourself. when i first got my c i was pretty much a mechanical noob (except for bikes) but after looking around, reading alot and buying tools and get stuck in, i hardly ever send my car to the garage unless its big problems or work that requires garage tools and i've saved myself £££££s at the end of the day the worse thats gunna happen is that you'll get it wrong and send it to the garage anyway, but y not have a crack first? :)
 
#31 ·
when i got my 51 corsa c i immediately had the oil sensor changed, cost me £7 in total not had problems with that since no leaks. ive just recently had a full timing kit change 2 day job at the garage, £530 job. ive had a full new exhaust £130. new rear shocks £120. the reverse is rattly, feels like a chestnut is stuck in 1st gear. other than that a sound car LOLOL
 
#33 · (Edited)
Hi all! My first post here, just want to give you some help & feedback on the MAF issue you all seem to be having. Its not actually the MAF its the ECT sensor (engine coolant temp) and wiring harness. I'm just sorting this issue out on my mates corsa and was using this forum as a reference...sorry :( However, I'll share with you the definitive answer to this issue, that should call us evens :heelclick:

Part numbers are correct for Vauxhall dealerships - I ordered mine on Monday and they came through.





Any questions, feel free to ask. Enjoy!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top