Fuel problem or ignition problem?

[BaileyB]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone else has experienced this problem and can throw some light on the mystery...

I have a 1998 MkIV 1.6 petrol, fuel injection, 5 speed (I imagine the MkIV in Australia is the same as the MkIV in the UK). Five days ago the idling became rough, then rougher. A day or so later, acceleration was poor, I could gently ease the throttle down and gets revs, but a heavy boot caused severe missing. and I could not even get to 50 kph. So my husband took it for a test drive on Sunday and he experienced the same symptoms for about 5 km before it died at a stop street. It started, ran very roughly for a second or two, then died again. So we towed it home with the Land Rover. Now it won't start at all.

The tank was filled up a week before and we had used about a third of a tankful, so I'm discounting water in the fuel. The battery is fine. The spark plugs appear OK.

So the question is, do we look at fuel injection related causes or ignition? Anyone had this problem before?. Current mileage is 89000 km.

cheers

[jonnopolo]

Could be the throttle body (needs cleaning) or could be the temp. sensor. Both give the symptoms you describe. Try giving the TB a good squirt of carburettor cleaner first & see if that makes a difference. HTH.

[Polo Paul]

hall sender or distributor failure would also cause similar symptoms, check them off in order of expense:

1. Clean the throttle body
2. Check the fuel and air filters
3. Check the distributor cap
5. Check fuses
4. Check the ignition leads, if they split that can cause tem to fail.
5. Check the coil

etc etc

If you can get someone to run a fault finding software on your car such as VAGCOM this may tell you exactly what has failed.

[BaileyB]

Thanks for the tips guys. The problem was fuel pump failure, it was delivering barely a trickle.

Got my baby back, so I'm happy now.

cheers

[polo boi]

Good job