idling problems

hi all,

recently my car has started to idle very low around the 500 or 400 rpm mark, when the car is first turned on it will go up to 1200 as
usual and drop to about 950 after cold start but then after a couple of minutes just drops to 500 also the car seems abit jerky when
driving i might just be being paranoid about that but i dont know.
can anyone give me any ideas as to whats up with it?
cheers
kai

ok so anyway the car did what i thought it might and refused to start  yesterday i run my garage this morning and they said it was proberly the fuel pump.
how can i test if it is the fuel pump? and also how hard is it to change?
thanks
kai

You went to a garage and they just gave advice but left you to fix it? Funny garage…..

It could be lots of things, but one of the things it could be is contaminated fuel. Simple test for this is a fuel pressure test. The fact that the pump's broken is a consequence of fuel contamination, but doesn't actually solve that one. So, if you replace a pump (they're not that cheap either), you might have the same issue in 1 week, 1 month, 3 months or whatever.

Or it could be a loose connection on the low tension ignition side. Or a dodgy HT lead. Or an overheating coil. etc etc

The first thing to do is to suss out if its an ignition or fuel issue. But then if the garage is already involved…..leave it to the garage to fix, don't second guess their work etc. If they can't fix it, find a better garage.

ah thanks for the advice, i havent actually taken it to the garage yet thats just what a mate there said it might be and as im sort of skint at the moment thought i might give it a shot.
anyway if there is no sure way of telling if its the fuel pump and why then il take it to the garage.
kai

Its not the fuel pump. They either work, or don't work. If you're skint, the worst thing you can do is randomly replace parts in "hope".