Hyundai Accent Just About Starts & Then Chugs & Rattles a While

I have a 1997 Hyundai Accent 1.5 MVi, which we've had many problems with
over the past year. I've noticed that other people on this forum have
left similar symptoms to those that we experienced a while back (namely
intermittent starting, which turned out to be a catalogue of things
costing us £300!). For the past 6 months she's been fine (apart from the
occasional non-start).

In the past 2 days we have a problem! when we start she sounds like she's
struggling to fire but when she does she begind to chug and rattle whilst
in idle tickover. The revs go down almost to the point of stalling but
then back up & down and so on. If you hold her at 2000 revs or so then
she sounds quite normal - the chug & rattle seems to go, but apparently
when you drive her a mile or 2 at a speed of 30-50mph she smells a little
of burning (so the wife says). Please can you help before I take to a
garage, and do you reckon it's expensive?

Thanks,
Luigi

PS... found a bolt about an inch long under where the car was parked the
first time this happened. Could be a coincidence.

 

This could be a lot of things, but I’d primarily recommend looking at
the idle actuator, the idle switch (if you have one), and the throttle
position sensor. Most of the rattling, etc., is probably due to the
low idle.

Of course, it could be the other way around, too. You may have a
misfire at idle, causing the idle to be too low