Spanners can attest this little fact...I've had 123 fitted to my 2cv for the last 6yrs or so, and to be honest, it's not as good as what I was led to believe. My car never starts with a "quick turn of the key", at the best of times, and when I've had times when the battery has been flat....Forget it! I think the only advantage over points is the "hope" that it's more reliable, which so far, it has(I had condenser issues before fitting 123, so I went down the lazy path).

If I was brave enough to remove the fan and learn how to fit points and condenser, I'm fairly sure I'd go back to points....Alas

Ooooooooo! You're gonna get it from the oil-cooler-cleaning-army now!

I know

If your car doesn't start with a quick turn of the key then something needs sorting out. How are the plugs, leads, coil, tappets, ignition switch connections, starter motor, battery etc? My cars always start instantly whether they're hot or have been left outside in the cold/wet for days on end, and the instant they start not starting instantly (what a great sentence!) I endeavour to get it sorted out. It's been said before that an electronic ignition won't cure problems that lie elsewhere, but rather it can compliment an already well set up system.

A 2cv should not be a pain to start!

(I just wish getting them to always run properly - say after 15 miles on a motorway - was so easy )

Hi Jonathan.

I guess we all have different experiences as every car is different, but I suspect it isn't fair to 'blame' the elec ign for your car not firing up instantly, or expecting that elec ign should automatically make it so. I think it's pretty clear that something else needs tweaking?

I don't have elec ign, but so far the car has given me the promised legendary reliability - it doesn't seem to matter how long it's left standing, it always fires up instantly. If I fitted elec ign, then I would expect the car to - do exactly the same.

Well cheers guys for the feedback, think I'll take a wander over to Peter Cross this afternoon and have a chat about "going through the system" to see what's what. To be honest, I've had all the different bits looked at many times before, but still have starting issues. I will say though, it starts better when in the garage, so I do tend to think it's a dampness issue. I've had problems with starting when camping or away from home, so the car has been left outside, and a quick squirt with WD40 tends to get the car started fairly promptly. HT leads?

Perhaps I'm doing some selective filtering, but it seems to me that everything I've ever read about electronic ignition has involved problems with it. On the other hand, I've always run points and condenser ignition (mostly because I've got better things to spend three figure sums on) and my cars have always started easily. Setting up points isn't difficult, once you've done it a few times.

I've had condensers fail within a month or two of new. I've had points heels wear down in very short order.

I've only ever once had a problem with Lumie - and that was when an over-long and not tied-down ignition live to the box got caught in the fan at 70mph... (I don't think we can blame Lumie for that, can we?)

Try cleaning any old WD40 residue off the coil and leads. What tends to happen is all the gunge creates a path to earth and all the current that should be going off to the sparkplug leaks away to the headlight bar. If you crank it over in the pitch black you can sometimes see a little river of purple sparks.
New HT leads and plugs never hurt, and I'd be tempted to do the points and condenser as well, just so you know it's all right. Low compression in one cylinder will also affect the starting (more than anything else), but there's a bit more work involved in sorting that out.

I've never had that happen, but I always keep the old condenser for a few weeks until I'm sure the new one is ok. I've certainly never known the points heels wear out. But as I say, I've had no actual experience of 123 or Lumention, my opinion is based purely on a review of the literature.



That, as you say, can hardly be counted as a shortcoming of electronic ignition ... bet that was fun to fix on the hard shoulder.