Starts right up when cold . After car at operating temp becomes hard to start when shut off. This is fuel injected 2.3. Have changed fuel filter, but no help. Sometimes smell gas ,but can't find leak anywhere. Any ideas on this? Thanks. p.s. car has 167,000 miles on it.
When you go to start the vehicle again do you hear the whine of the fuel pump. If you don't you might have a fuel pump problem.
Thanks! I hear fuel pump when cold , but not after car warmed up, turned off and tried to restart. That's probably the problem. I was thinking it might be the injector and was going to replace it, but I probably would have just wasted nearly a hundred bucks.
A good way to make sure is test the fuel pressure when the car is not starting. If I remember correctly it should be 30 psi.
It's seems to be a common problem with fords having thier fuel pumps go bad, i have seen it on a number of vehicles (ecpecially 80's models). It will still be about a hundred bucks to have it done in a shop. The pump is located in the top of the gas tank, which of course will have to be removed.
Funny thing is during the late 80's and early 90's when my 87 mustang was stalling all the time because of the fuel pump the dealer said that there was no problems with the pumps.......................I wonder if they were lying?
I had a '88 Ford Tempo that had an "early" fuel pump failure...before the recalls started for it. Call your Ford dealer with the VIN # and ask if they had installed a new fuel pump...that will give you a place to start. As long as you were on the freeway and at a steady speed it would run OK but when you got into stop and go traffic it would stall and you'd have to restart it as long as it wasn't too warm out. Otherwise you'd sit...it finally died and got replaced. I thought it was a problem with bad seals or bad seal design that eventually got redone. I never had to replace it again. But I did replace the fuel filter at the same time - just to be sure. Good luck... Linda (ps - that Tempo lasted over 250,000 miles on the same fuel pump and engine...but I did learn to have a very light touch with the gas and my husband could NEVER drive it for that reason...)
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