Focus cutting out

Ford Focus 1999 1.8 petrol.

This is a hard one I guess, but every few months, always around town at low speed, the Focus will kind of splutter to a halt like its run out of petrol. I do 2 x 260 mile motorway drives every month, and it has never conked out at that kind of fuel throughput.

I try and gently coax it back into life with the accelerator, like you might have done in the old days with a carb, and it comes and goes a bit, then dies. Immediately you turn off the ignition and restart, it fires up first time, and away you go like it never happened.

This happened this evening, but probably won't happen again for another 3 or

4 months.

I'm thinking perhaps the fuel supply is intermittent, maybe the pump relay? I had a look at the fusebox in the engine bay today but couldn't see a relay designated fuel pump. There was one with what looked like the engine diagnostic icon you get on the dash - is that the one? The Haynes manual doesn't tell you what is what here.

Anyway I might be clutching at totally the wrong straws, but it should be a pretty simple process to swap or replace this relay to eliminate that as the problem.

This may or may not be related, but equally sporadically, and perhaps every

6 months or more, the ignition warning light will come on for one second, then just go off again with no other symptoms present. When the car splutters to a halt, there are no lights until the engine stops turning.

Cheers,

Gareth.

Reply to
Gareth Magennis
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first thing to check is the breather pipe down the back, off the inlet manifold, if it feels squidgy change it.

they also lose idle when the vehicle speed sensor dies, the giveaway is that the speedo drops while you are still rolling, but if you aren't watching it you wouldn't know. it resets with the ign off. eventually it happens at higher speed and is more obvious but the engine doesn't stop because you have your foot down, the giveaway then is that the radio turns itself down.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

first thing to check is the breather pipe down the back, off the inlet manifold, if it feels squidgy change it.

they also lose idle when the vehicle speed sensor dies, the giveaway is that the speedo drops while you are still rolling, but if you aren't watching it you wouldn't know. it resets with the ign off. eventually it happens at higher speed and is more obvious but the engine doesn't stop because you have your foot down, the giveaway then is that the radio turns itself down.

Thanks, that's the kind of info I need. Took me long enough to establish no lights come on, it happens so irregularly and for a short space of time, and whilst I'm looking at bailing out safely.

I'll be watching that speedo now, I don't use the radio except Radio 4 on the motorway.

Cheers,

Gareth.

Reply to
Gareth Magennis

do check that breather pipe, when it goes squidgy it can collapse and block, if it splits it can let in air, until it gets really bad the symptoms can be irregular, varying with temperature and even how fast you go from cruise to shut off. a new pipe is only a couple of quiddish, so if yours is suspect change it.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

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