My car went to sleep on my way to Christmas Dinner

My golf had a new battery mid-Nov and full service end of Nov making me quite confident to go for a long drive on Christmas Day.  But a few miles down the road it went almost dead and woke up again.  After this happened the third time, decided to turn back. It took me half an hour to get home during which the car behaved normally!
Was I just going into wrong direction?
Any ideas as to what happened before I take it to the Golf Doktor and depart with ?????s ?

taurus said

 it went almost dead and woke up again.  After this happened the third time, decided to turn back.

When you say it went dead, do you mean it ran normally, but lost power smoothly, or did it cough and splutter in a jerky fashion, or something else entirely?

No noises but it shook, or was it me, it just would not move off properly from stationary and get going - it was like trying to drive with the clutch partially engaged.

taurus said

No noises but it shook, or was it me, it just would not move off properly from stationary and get going - it was like trying to drive with the clutch partially engaged.

A "smooth" lack of power like this is usually down to fuel starvation, rather than lack of spark (lack of spark is VERY jerky by comparison as, for some piston cycles, you have normal full power, other ones you have absolutely zero)

From what you said about this happening three separate times on a journey, it might be crud in the fuel tank being drawn to the uptake pipe and clogging the filter there, and then falling away if the engine/fuel pump is stopped (did it stall/did you switch off the ignition, when it gave trouble?)

Regarding it being ok when you turned to go home, was one direction up or downhill? How much fuel was in the tank at the time? (not that you were running out completely, but the crud (if any) would be concentrated in a smaller amount of fuel when the tank is low, making the problem worse/more frequent)

Thanks for your replies Type 17.
The fuel tank is full filled it up Christmas Eve.
Yes it stalled when I pulled up into a side street and stopped in order to turn around.  Started up UK though.  How do I get rid of this crud?

It could be either general muck from dirty fuel, or it could be that your filler neck is rusted through and is allowing road dirt into the tank, or in the past it was driving with a rusty neck for a while.

How is your filler neck?

Either way, lift the rear seat, and then unscrew the three screws on the round, black cover, remove the electric plug from the fuel tank sender unit, then turn the unit anti-clockwise to remove it (note the direction that the ball-cock arm is at as you remove it, for easy re-installation).

Now you can look into the fuel tank with a torch (DON'T use a mains inspection light - potential for sparks around the now-open fuel tank!)

If you see dirt, try and scoop it out an examine whether it is mostly "regular" dirt or (hopefully) fragments of rusty steel from the filler neck.
If it is dirt, you need to remove as much of it as possible (certainly the big bits). This job sucks, but you'll have to do it…

If it is steel (rust) particles, the job is much easier - get an old speaker, and tear out the paper cone and any other non-metallic parts (snip off the basket part if it is a large speaker), and stick the flat, rear side of the magnet to the flat bottom of the fuel tank - this magnet will collect all of the rust particles, preventing them from clogging the pickup pipe.

Now you know why you'll be wishing it is mostly steel particles…

How do I get rid of this crud?

Hi
     Always use an injector cleaner in the tank eg Redex . To clean the rust and crap out use Type17 method on sender unit removal and with an empty "as best you can" fuel tank look for the filter with a torch , remove [it pulls out see Haynes manual] and suck out the debris round it with any "AIR" powered suction device , i used a grit blast gun and extended the pick up pipe and sucked out all the crap . With air power there is little [or should i say no] danger of explosive reaction . Result clean tank , then keep using a quality injector / fuel system cleaner and you should have no more problems

I like Type17 method of using the speaker magnet and would use that to collect any other crud ready for the suck out method as above . Not trying to teach Granny etc but any one reading this Do not be tempted to use a Vacuum Hoover to suck out the tank only air powered tools from an external compressor will do …  


Cheers Chudd….