Spannerman

Sounds like a fault with the unit,  have you any water entering the boot area ?

My old one made a continuous noise in drive after failing, I replaced it with a one found on E bay, you could try removing your unit and spraying with WD40 or similar but suspect the unit has failed, they are not difficult to remove but i found it easier to remove the spare wheel to gain acess

best of luck

Hi Mark

you will not 40 mpg from a petrol model, i have a 3L sport, its a great car but like everything not without faults, on a motorway run I can get up to 36-37 mpg which i think is really good for this type of engine, but mixed driving will be around 26,  don`t get too hung up on sat nav, the units are now quite old and not supported via updates, far better to get a relatively cheap tom tom or garmen in my opinion, petrol or diesel is a balance between how far you travel each year, Bodywork and service history are probably more important than year, if you go for an auto just check it does not lurch-known problem,  it helps if you know a little about cars or you have a fat wallet but buy one because you will not regret it, oh and this forum is really good for help and advice

best of luck

Noel

Could it be an air leak then  upsetting the mixture? ideally you need your friends code reader to highlight what the P code is showing

There is a pipe there as you suspect, I have read a number of comments on other forums about this, but, before you delve in too deeply to the engine bay have a look at the pipework at the front of the engine just past the air cleaner ssembly, the vac tube here on mine had a split underneath which was not at first glance obvious, only noticed when flexing the pipe and trying to hear any air leek or hiss As a temp fix i used insulation tape to bind the split,that was some time ago, the orange  performance light went off and it has been ok ever since, have you had any warning lights/ comments  come up on the dash?

Noel

Hi Paul

i too had a similar problem, the coil replacement on the one bank is fiddly but not too bad, on bank 2 its a bit of a faff due to removing the manifold, if you change them take one of the old ones off first and check the connections, i didn`t do this and was sent a two prong connection off e bay which was supposed to fit when I needed a four prong, got the money refunded but if this saves anyone the same agro then I  think i Iwill have done you a service, if you can get a cheap code reader  this can help pin point lots of these types of faults.