Engine dies after few seconds

[jonvik]

Hi all,

please can someone help, last September I bought my first car Renault Megane 2. It is 1590 cm engine and manufacture date is 2004 (sorry not tech savvy). Its automatic and I live in Europe. I bought it used at 80K kilometres and it has been working ok till last week.
Last week I woke up one morning to go to work and the car simply refused to start, I managed to get someone to tow it to a Renault dealership where they told me it was the battery. This fixed the problem and for one week the car worked perfectly.
Yesterday i tried to start the car, it starts and after about 5 seconds, shuts down by it self. When i push the gas pedal for about 10 seconds (still in parking mode), then it does not shut down and i can go where i need, but after i park for 20 mins and return, it dies after 5 seconds starting the car. While driving , the car seems to jerk a little and sometimes needs more pressure on the gas pedal to accelerate.

Please can someone just try to help me understand what could be wrong with it, I plan to take it back to be fixed tomorrow, but would like to understand what could possibly be wrong with it.

[AlexB]

Am I right thinking it is petrol, there are no warning lights on the dash (never were), no rattling sound on startup, no error codes read by using a diagnostic machine (ELM327, £20 on ebay) and it was properly serviced with OEM filters and the best oil as soon as you bought it?

...or there is a rattle on startup, in which case it is the dephaser fault...

[jonvik]

Am I right thinking it is petrol, there are no warning lights on the dash (never were), no rattling sound on startup, no error codes read by using a diagnostic machine (ELM327, £20 on ebay) and it was properly serviced with OEM filters and the best oil as soon as you bought it?

...or there is a rattle on startup, in which case it is the dephaser fault...

Hi Alex B, it does rattle when I start it, and it runs on Petrol. I did not service it when i bought it, but i was hoping to do so once i get this fixed this time. Thanks a bunch, i really appreciate the insight

[neilhadwin]

possible throttle body

[AlexB]

The rattle (sound like gears slipping) on startup means that the dephaser is gone. It is replaced together with belts. At 80k/6y, one may also want to replace the coolant pump while the belts are off. It is a very popular fault.

Dephasers failures are related to lubrication. Always demand MB229.5 oil in service, OEM filters and change the oil every 15000km or 1 year.

The other very frequent problems with this engine are ignition coils, which fail because garages do not apply insulating grease when replacing spark plugs, and dirty throttle bodies, which just need to be cleaned.

[jonvik]

Thanks again Alex B, I have now taken the car to the Service and I will be asking them to change the oil and will complete further changes soon.

Thanks again, I really do appreciate the help.......