I had to jump start my 1993 n/a zed from its winter hibernation today. I last started the car 2 months ago and everything was fine. The zed is always kept in a garage, but today when it fired up it just didn't sound right. The car seemed to lurch sideways as it started and I could hear popping sounds from the exhaust. I let it warm up and drove it round town for about 10 minutes. It went ok but something wasn't running right. There wasn't any hesitation as such it just didn't sound or feel normal. I stopped the engine and restarted it a couple of times to see if the problem cleared itself but it was still there.

I have had the car for 3 years and it's been fine and has always started first time. The battery has run flat before when the cars been in the garage and not driven during the winter. But would start ok with jump leads.

Does anyone have any ideas what the problem might be, if not I live in Herts if anyone knows of a garage they could recommend.

Firstly with the battery disconnected or flat for a period of time, the ECU resets, so you may need to drive a few miles for the ECU to relearn all the settings.

You might want to check the terminal for corrosion on the temp sensor on the top of the water pipe in front of the cam cover. The temp sensor can cause problems with running, fuelling etc.