Driving for a dogwalk early xmas day in my new (to me) X type - totally choaked and died on me...

AA man - on a 7 day shift away from his family covering Milton Keynes to the south coast, staying in B and B for a week gets to me within an hour - tries his hardest but can't get any error codes from the car - and only gets it started briefly by squirting stuff into the intake...

Conclusion - no fuel delivery - fuel pump or fuel sensor failure - terrifying tow to the local garage......Is this a common failure...???? A bit scary....

Total respect to AA guy - disappointment in X type but there you go, with second hand stuff you expect problems I guess and it will be fixed.

Total amazement at the idiots who took such stupid risks overtaking my broken down car, which had warning lights on and a warning triangle place 50m behind the car, and even more amazement at the twits who overtook dangerously when I was being towed.....someone even tried to pull into the gap between me and the AA van which was towing me ......unbelievable!!!

 

sorry to hear about your problems... Some people just don't understand driving etiquette. I would personally point my finger at the fuel pump. You should be able to hear your fuel pump start pumping when you turn the key to the II position. If you don't hear the pump, it's probably dunzo. Sorry that has to be your Christmas present.

 

basso, yes, fuel pumps are a common failure item on our cars and they will go with no warning. The easy check is to simply connect up a fuel pressure gauge to the fuel rail and then rotate the key to the RUN position (do not start the motor). You should see the pressure gauge jump up to 40-50 psi (closer to 50). If it stays below 40 psi, then you either have a bad fuel pump or the fuse for the fuel pump failed. Check the fuse first, but odds are it is the fuel pump.

 

Looking up fuel pump failure, is it most likely to be a mechanical failure then an electrical one? If mechanical, I am worried that the pump will have taken the injectors with it...big bucks there.

The car had a couple of strange low rev start ups over the previous two days - missing and a lot of smoke, cleared by pressing the accelerator. This may well be related to the total failure yesterday....

 

You have a fuel filter between tank and engine so should not be a problem

 

Warning, his car is a diesel so all bets are off as to what could be the problem (since we 'mericans have little experience diagnosing repairing those power-trains).
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