Whining Noise, Weird Clunking And Now Wont Start? Help!

[Michael1995]

Today I went out in the car and it has developed a whining noise when accelerating, I drove the car for about 5 miles when it lost power and felt like it had slipped out of gear, when trying to accelerate it was making a kind of grinding noise, power came back and I managed to nurse it home, when I got home the car sounded fine but when I was parking it suddenly sounded like a tractor, engine was very loud one minute then back to normal and it also started clunking aswell, left it for a few hours and now it wont start.

 

sorry the description isn't the best but its the only way I can think to describe it

 

Car is a Citroen C3 2005, 1.1 litre around 78k miles

 

Any help is appreciated, Thanks everyone!

[paul.h]

Welcome to the forum.

 

I suspect many people would not have used the car after the noise started in case it made something worse and may have called the RAC/AA/etc. Did any warning lights come on ?

 

Possible problems could be anything but could include

- low oil level,

- low oil pressure (does the oil light come on when the ignition is first turned on ?),

- crankshaft pulley failure (some have a rubber insert that can perish and then it becomes noisy),

- clutch failure,

- crankshaft bearing failure,

- gearbox bearing failure,

- air leak on the engine inlet or exhaust,

- fuel injector failure,

- loose spark plug,

- timing belt jumped a tooth.