Anyone give me some advice about my car playing up?

[Kendodd]

I have a seven year old Honda Jazz 69,000 miles.

When I drive it almost feels as if the hand brake is still on (it's not) also the rev counter seem a little high and moves up more than it should if I exhilarate. This problem started today. I'll probably take it to be looked at but want to go in with some ideas/suggestions (from MN ) of what might be wrong so I don't look like a complete clueless idiot.

Any ideas?

Ignition coils ?

Can I just have a little giggle at your "exhilarate"? What a wonderful autocorrect!

I'd stop driving it immediately - could be your timing belt, and if it goes, you'll have MASSIVE problems (had this).

www.ehow.com/about_5031487_signs-timing-belt-problems.html

exhilarate

Oh yes, didn't notice that!

Timing belt sounds bad and expensive

It will be if it goes! Which is why I wouldn't drive it again. Do you have AA/RAC cover? you might be able to get them to come and look at it for you - give them a call and tell them the problem, see if they'll relay you to a garage or not. They might not, but they also might be able to give you a hint what's amiss.

Mine went on my drive home - started feeling odd, losing power, had to rev high to keep it going - got the car home, just, but driving it with the timing belt busted meant that the cylinder head had to be removed, and half my engine valves were bent/busted. Cost over £1k to be fixed, and that was 10 years ago.

I wish people who don't have a clue wouldn't respond to queries like this. First off Thumb the Jazz uses a timing chain rather than a belt and secondly you did not drive your car home with a busted timing belt. An engine will not run with a busted timing belt. You clearly had some kind of catastrophic failure which may have led to a busted cambelt. OP you dont mention which gearbox your Jazz has - some have a CVT auto in which revs have no link with speed but something has obviously changed for you to notice. If it's a manual transmission then your symptoms sound very much like a slipping clutch.

The car's manual. I'm rubbish with cars and know nothing about them I think I'll get better service at a garage if I look like I have some knowledge so I will go in tomorrow and suggest it might be the can belt or slipping clutch?

It's not the cam belt, because aside from anything else the Honda Jazz doesn't have a cam belt. Even if it had a cam belt, you rarely get any warning: they just fail, and in overlapping engines take the valves with them.

It sounds like a slipping clutch. Is that 69000 urban miles? Do you hold the car on the clutch on hills? If so, 70k is a reasonable lifespan.

As it's a manual then it does sound very much like clutch slip to me. Without looking it up I'd say roughly £100 for the parts and around 3-4 hours labour.

Yeah, I did as it happens, because it went on the up-slope of the hill before the turning into my road. I ruined it getting it up the hill; and the rest was mostly coasting but the engine was still running.

And no, I don't mean it snapped but some of the "teeth" (or whatever you'd prefer to call them) were coming off. If it had snapped it would never have got up the hill at all. Still "busted".

Sounds more like something else failed which caused the teeth to be stripped. And I doubt that the engine was still running - it was still being turned over by the momentum of the car. The resulting bent valves etc would've happened even if you'd dipped the clutch straight away.

Thank you all so much! Just called the garage and said I think the clutch might be slipping, they agreed. Very proud of my faked knowledge