I drive a 98 ford fiesta (first car). It runs a treat apart from one slight problem, happens about twice a week mainly when its cold as ive only noticed it this winter. Have had 2 garages check it out and they cannot see any reasons for this.

Basically in the morning when im driving into work i normally have to weave in and out of parked cars to get out of the road i live in, and when im coming up to the junction and slowing down the steering will get really heavy like the power steering has died, this then leads to the car cutting out and me having to turn the engine over and over a few times till it starts again.

I use the car quite a lot for work etc and it does only seem to happen in the mornings or when im leaving from work, its a very strange problem and wondered if anyone had any ideas or anything as its really annoying as im driving in the mornings just wondering when its next going to happen :P

Im not very knowledgeable with cars, but its hard to tell if the engine starts dying first or the PAS. All i know is when the steering gets heavy i have to start the car up again to get everything working. Also about 2 seconds after this happens the a red light appears where the battery symbol is on my dash.

Thanks in advance,

 

sounds like ur automatic choke isnt working or its ur idle vavle thats full of crap that will make it stall, when the car stalls the battery light will come on

 

lol they havent used chokes for a long time mate espicialy on a 98 fiesta

 

What's actually happening is the engine is trying to die, as the engine slows so does the power steering pump giving less assitance hence heavy steering, it eventually cuts out hence the battery light to show no charge.
So you have a very simple cold stalling fault.
Unlikely to be the ISCV(idle speed control valve) as this controls the idle speed at all temperatures, more likely to be a mixture problem, of air to fuel(termed AFR = Air Fuel Ratio), saying choke was on the right track, as these were used to "choke" the air supply so the afr went rich(more fuel less air).
The thing that controls this on your engine is the LAMBDA sensor, this "reads"(senses) the amount of air(oxygen) in the exhaust and so works out the AFR as it knows the fuel it is putting in, this refers to the ecu to sort it out.
If this sensor cannot/does not read correctly everything goes up the swanny.
I would firstly check for anything obvious like a blocked air filter, air leaks on the induction(air going into the engine) side, if nothing obvious goto a friendly mot station to get a read out of exhaust gasses.
Universal lambda's are only around £35, the last festa I did was a 1.25 zetec se, changed the lambda,(dead easy on these), and fuel went from 170 miles a tank to over 300 to a tank.
Some cars are still turning up with "TESCO" lambda's, tesco had a bad batch of fuel that killed these a few years back, but most have been fixed by now.
It would certainly not hurt to clean the iscv if the above fails.
What is the idle like when hot nice and stable or a bit lumpy.
tabetha