I've a W reg Marea Weekend 2.0 with nearly 100,000 miles on the clock which I absolutely love, but it recently developed a problem during long runs. I drove back from Switzerland to the UK yesterday and after spending all day at 80-90mph (gotta love those French autoroutes), on getting into the massive queue at the Eurotunnel it cut out. It was like there was no fuel at all getting to the engine - didn't splutter or anything.
After about ten minutes it restarted, and seemed fine. Then after 45 minutes idling in the queue it cut out again. After letting it cool down it restarted (and enabled us to jump the three hour queue to get a train - I think the Eurotunnel mechanic wanted to get rid of my bad French!)
It was fine coming back from Folkestone to Leicester, although we kept the speed below 80mph. However this morning after about 20 minutes on the M69 at 80mph ish it cut out again, restarting after about ten minutes, so it seems to be getting worse.
It never seemed to do it whilst we were in Switzerland for the past week although we didn't do many long runs, but it did do it once on the way down when we stopped at a service station.
A friend suggested it was fuel starvation, and he suggested looking at the fuel pump - he had a volvo with a similar problem that cleared once the engine cooled down. The engine doesn't run hot - needle never goes over halfway on the temperature gauge.
I had a search on here and I haven't tried the taking off the fuel cap trick yet to see if a vacumn is building up, but I will. Another thread suggested it couple be a temperature sensor, lambda sensor or mass air sensor. It's very much an all or nothing problem - when it restarts it runs fine.
It's also always had a rattle from the exhaust, which the fiat coupe specialist in Birmingham (Paul at Motormech??) reckoned was a loose baffle - however I saw another thread about blocked exhausts, wondered whether the baffle is getting in the way?
I'm taking it to JCS Kegworth this afternoon, but does anyone have any other suggestions before I end up with a big dealer bill? :-(
Thanks
After about ten minutes it restarted, and seemed fine. Then after 45 minutes idling in the queue it cut out again. After letting it cool down it restarted (and enabled us to jump the three hour queue to get a train - I think the Eurotunnel mechanic wanted to get rid of my bad French!)
It was fine coming back from Folkestone to Leicester, although we kept the speed below 80mph. However this morning after about 20 minutes on the M69 at 80mph ish it cut out again, restarting after about ten minutes, so it seems to be getting worse.
It never seemed to do it whilst we were in Switzerland for the past week although we didn't do many long runs, but it did do it once on the way down when we stopped at a service station.
A friend suggested it was fuel starvation, and he suggested looking at the fuel pump - he had a volvo with a similar problem that cleared once the engine cooled down. The engine doesn't run hot - needle never goes over halfway on the temperature gauge.
I had a search on here and I haven't tried the taking off the fuel cap trick yet to see if a vacumn is building up, but I will. Another thread suggested it couple be a temperature sensor, lambda sensor or mass air sensor. It's very much an all or nothing problem - when it restarts it runs fine.
It's also always had a rattle from the exhaust, which the fiat coupe specialist in Birmingham (Paul at Motormech??) reckoned was a loose baffle - however I saw another thread about blocked exhausts, wondered whether the baffle is getting in the way?
I'm taking it to JCS Kegworth this afternoon, but does anyone have any other suggestions before I end up with a big dealer bill? :-(
Thanks
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