So, here i was pootling down some country lanes late last night, at about 60mph when all of a sudden i lose all power and throttle response.
eventually it took a stall, which i knew was imminent, so we coasted to a halt in a lay by and i did some checking over etc.
Now, my fuel pump is normally quite audiable, and this time it wasnt. bollocks
dead fuel pump. so i check the fuel pump fuse and associated electricals, give the pump a bit of a whacking, and it starts again first time. woohoo!
then a few minutes later it died again It did this a few times ultimately resulting in me having to be towed home by mr Green Flag. thank god for sky tv on your mobile and car pc's! possibly the longest 40 minutes of my life

Can anyone give me some suggestions as to what else it could be? i've kinda got this mindset that it is definately the fuel pump, partly because i cant think of anything else it could be and because its not priming and the cars got 140k miles on which i reckon its on its original. dont know for sure but i suspect thats got to be fuel pump death territory?the pump is still starting when it wants to, and dies soon after.

It's due a service and some TLC so i'm going to be doing the following:
Full service, Fuel pump, Fuel Filter, oil change and filter, front brake pads, clutch change, new gearbox oil, all oils changed, new plugs and leads, new dizzy if they're cheap, and a thorough valeting! could also do with replacing all the major bushes but buggered if i can be bothered this weekend. Also going to get a full alignment done on the wheels as i'm sure my tracking is out a bit.


So today i've been carless, which is not a good thing for me as i NEED my car. I've also got the folks car, which although i despise ( E46 325i sport Beemer muck) would do the trick until i get some new parts sorted for the discovery. unfortunately last time i took it out i kinda used the last of the meat on the front brakes.

you could have **** in yer tank that is getting sucked up/in by the pump then when it dies the suction goes away and so does the **** untill the next time it sucks. only real way to check is to drain it.

slob said:

you could have **** in yer tank that is getting sucked up/in by the pump then when it dies the suction goes away and so does the **** untill the next time it sucks. only real way to check is to drain it.

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yeah had a feeling someone was going to say that, dreading that as it's got 3/4 of a tank in

check all the connections first, just in case its some weird leccy fault.

I am not sure that giving it a full valet is going to help much.

I'd check the filter first, cheapest component, assuming it has one.

if it was the filter wouldn't it just stop and not restart? but as you say its cheap so why not?

Blocked filter is same as having crap (not a crap) in your tank, the pump will pick it up and block the pipework, after a time the suction will decrease and the crap will drop off until the next time it's picked up. Know someone who spent weeks on this sort of problem, the truck would do a mile or so and stop, after 10 mins or so off it would go again. Couldn't SEE anything in the tank so started stripping bits down and replacing parts. Turned out to be a piece of clear plastic in the tank blocking the stack pipe and being released again after a while.

is this an in tank filter? because i can't see an inline one doing that