Skoda Fabia 1.9PD (BSW Engine code) 2008 77k miles

Only when engine is hot does it lose power and cut out when driving. When cold it starts and runs fine; around town no problems at all. Take it for a drive 12-15 miles when engine is hot - it dies on me. I pull over into a layby, turn ignition off. Wait a minute, turn ignition on again & it’s perfectly fine again for a short while then the same thing happens. No fault codes, no dash error or EML lights.

I have: changed fuel filter, MAF sensor, cleaned out EGR & turbo inlet feed pipe (Mr Muscle treatment). It is not turbo related; it happens even when car engine isn’t under enough load for turbo to act.
Took it to a local (good) garage & they can’t define the problem; no codes come up (even though it died on them when they took it on the road).
It is likely to be fuel related; almost as though starved of fuel when engine gets hot on the road. I am going to look at the lift pump in the tank and see whether it may have a gauze filter that may be clogged up – or if some part of it is perhaps stopping it from feeding fuel to the fuel filter when hot unused fuel is being returned to the tank.

If anyone has had a similar issue with a 1.9PD engine I’d like to hear from you!

 

It'll be the lift pump or its relay. 

Don't know if this will help you, had somethng simular to this on my mates car,we landed up changing the fuel pump in the tank and it cured the problem, could not find what was wrong with  the old unit but the only thing that we could come up with was that the  fuel pipes in the pump seemed very soft were not leaking but might have been letting in air somehow between the two layers of the pipe but it beat us to see what was wrong changed the unit went ok after job done, paid around £50 for a pattern replacement I seem to remember but you could try the stealers first sometimes they have old new stock they want to get rid of hope this helps

It's easy to tell if it is lift pump/relay just open the filter up when it cuts out and there will be a low level of fuel in there.

 

Any chance it could be an ignition switch issue? 

 

 

Yep, figure it is likely the lift pump; I'll look into it tomorrow... despite the -6 forecast 🥶😃

The pump is surprisingly easy to replace if needed.

Well I bought a new lifter pump and replaced the old one. Drove down the road and within 5 minutes the same power loss / fuel starving symptoms returned; the pump was not the problem. It appears that the garage I took it to were probably correct in their diagnosis - that it is one or other of the injectors that has a problem. Just watched a couple of youtube videos on the injector rreplacement; reckon it's just about within my abilities. However - the next question is - how do I know which injector is the faulty one?

Start with giving it a scan in case it shows one cylinder as faulty. Injectors on a PD aren't a trivial job. 

 

Did you look if the filter housing was running out of fuel?

1 hour ago, StevesTruck said:

Start with giving it a scan in case it shows one cylinder as faulty. Injectors on a PD aren't a trivial job. 

 

Did you look if the filter housing was running out of fuel?

I can't scan it as I don't have a compatible code reader but the garage that had it to diagnose - said it gave no fault codes - even when it died on the road in front of them. I haven't looked to see whether the filter was low on fuel - but have just changed the tank pump for a new one - I no longer suspect supply of fuel to be the problem...

I can see where you're coming from, but to me, a spluttering cut out is almost always going to be fuel delivery. If a PD isn't injecting a cylinder under load, it's normally a pretty harsh misfire.

 

Not sure what the garage scanned it with, but it might be worth seeing if there's someone by you with VCDS or a good reader. I'd almost put money on there being a saved code that will give you a clue. 

 

The alternative's going to be go old school and do a leakdown test, ideally do one with it running and one with it cut out. 

 

It's almost never the injectors on a PD, the loom fails often but without a code diagnosis is tricky, fuel pump relay is the other possibility.

Just rethinking this problem. I can use the car around the town for cold, short journeys but not out of town. When out of town it is fine and perfectly ok until a certain moment then there's a hesitation and this becomes a shuddering to almost kangaroo-ing then it will cut out altogether. When I sense the hesitation, I can ease off the accelerator and slow down and it becomes almost bareable to get me to a layby. I can then switch off remove the key, wait two minutes then it is usually ok for another very short distance. However, last night in the town I was driving short distances A to B, B to C, C to A etc then when the engine was warm, it cut out altogether without the previous hesitation stage. Dead on the road. Hazards on and waited 2 mins then it started fine and I got home. My thoughts are turning to the injector loom. I did see a vid on youtube where someone showed a section of 2 wires that he traced from the injectors to the ECU then eventually found a section where they'd shorted to each other due to the plastic cover rubbing against them. I think I could define the colours of each relevant wire and then trace them back to the ECU and simply by-pass each with new wire and a joint at either end - or do a resistance/continuity test on each when running good and when not - and then replace that/those wires that are not good. This has to be a less expensive/less time consuming job than removing. servicing/replacing the injectors. The car's only done 77k; I've never had a car, ever with injector problems - but it seems pretty low mileage for such a problem to my naive mind!