Starting/running problem

[Dippydog]

Step daughter[who has had the V70 for a good few weeks now]got in touch this evening to say that on her leaving work it nearly flattened the battery before eventually staring and that it didn't "run right" all the way home.Anyway I went round to have a look/listen and asked her what it was/wasn't doing,apart from the reluctant start issue she said at tickover the revs were "hunting"and it would make more than 50mph[unless going down hill]also when changing gear the whole car was "shunting".This sounded to me exactly like it ran when I first changed it to contactless a couple of years ago and I had take the throttle body off and re-do the contactless job again[since when it's run fine with no problems]as a mate of mine had done the change initially.Before I go down the route of taking off the throttle body and investigating that could there be other reasons for this behaviour?Tried starting it and going for a short run round in it while I was there and it started[several times]and ran perfectly although she did note that the trip computer was registering 112 miles range when she left work and by the time she got home it was registering 45miles range and it's only a 20mile journey.Car is a P1 10v 2.4 petrol 140bhp V70.Apologies for long post but I hope I've given all relevant information for informed diagnosis/guesses.

[Paul240480]

Is it on coil packs? Sounds like it went into limp mode?

Can you read codes, even if it's running okay now you may have a stored code?

Or is it all sorted now?

[Dippydog]

Yes it is on coil packs.I too thought it sounded as though it had gone into limp mode[there were no warning lights such as eml lit up while it was doing this]but I don't have any code reading facilities.So far this behaviour has not repeated itself and it's running as normal[touch wood]at least I presume so as I've heard nothing from step daughter since to say otherwise

[Paul240480]

Hopefully it's sorted then.

It's always a guessing game with these issues. It could be a coil pack starting to give.... Could be fuel control relay starting to give....

Recently had a coil pack give on my ph2. It limped me home the last 10 miles of a 2000+ mile round trip. It did make the EML flash if I gave it too much gas tho'....

It stored a P0303, telling me coil pack on #3 cylinder . Easy fix (treated it to set of Volvo plugs too.

I'd reccomend a reader, can save loads of time. I have 2. One is a cheapo Autel less than £20. That didn't detect this code. My other is OBDsx I think. It plugs into a laptop. IIRC it was £60-80 quid. There are probably much better ones, but it seems to do the job.

Good luck and fingers crossed.