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Basic story - pulling away from motorway slip road and car lost power for about 2 seconds (quite scary!) On the 5-6 mile drive home, the same splutter/lag happened two or three times. Decided to call the RAC out to get an idea of the problem and it seems from his point of view, the cat is slightly blocked.

I understand that this is a bit of a common fault on the 9N's and don't really want to pay over £300 for a new one. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do (take out a warranty perhaps ) as the anti-roll bar bushes are slightly perished and its just starting to bug me that the 9N is just a pain in the a**e!

Its a 2002 1.2 E by the way.
Thanks, Mike

I'd think that you would need to post some logged fault codes before thinking about spending lots of money on a whim. I'd also have thought that the RAC patrol would have scanned your engine's controller first before he came to this conclusion.

I had the same problem. Took it to a garage to get the codes read and he told me "It's just a big clogged up, try ragging it for a couple of days."

Anyway, ragging it didn't help. Turned out there was a hole in the cat = £240 to get it replaced (inc labour).

Sorry RUM4NO, ye the RAC bloke did run a diagnostics on the ECu and nothing came up, think he tried two different machines.
He then put his hand over the exhausts and noticed there wasn't much pressure, that was when he concluded it may be the cat. Also, it was a really hot day, so maybe it just decided to play up then.

Bit of an update, been taking several trips from Cardiff - Newport and back and nothing has happened. Maybe a slight drop in miles per tank but I have ragged it quite a bit lately!

Ah weel, we'll wait and see

Hey i recently replaced my cat because it was hollow and the stupid emissions light is back on again within a month. Nightmare! It comes up with check load: crosscheck. Im not sure why this would kick in though.