I’ve got a MY00 Wagon that had a weird problem last night. When driving home I was rolling along a dual carriageway at about 40mph in top when the engine cut out. No warning, spluttering or anything like that, all electrics/lights stayed on. So I popped the car into neutral and tried to restart it, it cranked over nice and hard but the car did not want to start. After about 20 seconds or so it caught and fired up, luckily I’d been going downhill so I hadn’t lost much speed. Carried on with my journey, about another ½ mile and nothing further occurred.

I then went out about 2 hours later and whilst travelling at about 60mph the same thing happened with no warning the engine just stopped, this time I couldn’t get the car restarted and rolled to a halt at lay-by. Same as before all electrics were still working, headlamps bright, etc. Popped bonnet & checked coil pack/battery connections but everything seemed fine, checked ignition circuit fuse which was ok. After about 10 minutes of trying car burst into life and I continued with my journey with no further problems. Homeward trip was ok as was the trip into work this morning. Anybody got any idea what would cause this?

 

try run some diagnostics and see if the ecu throws up some codes

otherwise could be fuelpump ? just a guess a diagnostics test would probably give some clue

 

How about an intermittent cam/crank sensor? Is the ecu showing any fault codes (even though the Check Engine light might not be showing)?

 

Reggie, graham

Can I run the diagnostics myself or is that a dealer job?

Cheers

 

yea you can do it yourself

follow the instructions on this site

http://www.saxonfields.freeserve.co....iag%20Page.htm

cheers

 

Excellent, I'll give it a go tonight.

Cheers

 

Ran the diagnostic and no codes found. Any other ideas what may have caused the above?

 

earth on the engine harness maybe
look around the inlet manifold on the right see if theres any earthing cables looking a bit tatty
mine did the same as you but it cut out because the earth fault sent the temp sky high

 

Wiring looks ok but I'd defintely say there's some kind of earthing problem as the problem has returned and this time I had to call out the recovery truck. As it cooled down I found it would restart and run at about 500rpm but would not respond to the throttle at all. As it got cooler still it restarted and would run normally for about a minute before cutting out again. Off to the garage on Monday to see what they can find.

 

Check the earth wire on the ecu (under the carpet in the passengers side footwell). I have had that come loose.

 

I'll take a look in the morning, Cheers

 

Final update - didn't find any loose earth wires so off to the dealer where they diagnosed the MAF and Oxygen Sensor as faulty. Strange as I didn't have any the usual MAF failing symptons, fluctuating idle, increased performance, surging, etc. Hope it doesn't happen again, £370 bills just after Xmas are not funny.

 

Car broke down again with the same symptons on Saturday, just got car back now. Dealer had to replace ECU and hopefully it's now sorted, not been changed any extra. I'm presuming ECU cost is similar to a MAF and Oxygen sensor.