Hi, my name's John and I'm the owner of a nearly new '54 Octavia Hatchback in Elegance trim with a 1.9TDi engine and about 21,700 miles

Unfortunately since I got it last Tuesday (from Startin Skoda in Powick, Worcester) it has stopped dead twice. It seems that the fuel just stops reaching the engine every so often, requiring an AA call out both times. The first time the AA engineer manually pumped fuel up into the engine and we were able to start it. The second time I broke down only 2 miles away from the dealer, so the AA truck just gave me and the car a lift back.

The first time it stopped I'd only driven 11 miles and it had about quarter of a tank of fuel. The second time I'd driven it 180 miles and it had just under three-quarters of a tank.

The mechanics are scratching their heads at the moment, and I'm frustrated that my lovely new car isn't reliable.

Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this problem?

Cheers,

John

P.S. I should say that the garage has been very helpful. They've given me a 1.6FSi demonstrator to drive while they try to work out what's going on. But I'm a bit concerned that they don't seem to know what the problem is.

Is there a relay that controls power to the fuel pump prehaps?

Sorry just a guess.

could be a fault on the immobilizer

could be a fault on the immobilizer

Actually that would make a lot of sense as the imobiliser we had fitted to an old derv many years ago, that was the only way to impobilise it as it only needed fuel and you could then jump it etc.

Thank you, I shall mention these things when I next talk to the mechanics.

I forgot to mention that no faults are reported when they plug the laptop into it.

i think it's so interesting that most technicians cant diagnose problems anymore!! most of them need little laptops and fancy software..

You would think an multimeter would always be useful for electrical faults and checking power to pumps etc would't you

I guess it's got to the 'computer say no' stage now :(

Watch the laptop diagnoses. they give the mechanic a list of problems to work on so they replace all these problems one by one until you end up with a huge bill. Renault tried it with me on my laguna. computer reported about 5 problems. ended up it was a heat sensor, but this was after the mechanic replaced the distributor cap I was lucky he went for the sensor next although you would think a sensor would be the first thing to test.!!!

Are the fuel filters OK?

Did you drag it belly recently, perhaps denting the fuel supply lines so they are almost closed,,

just keeping simple things first

I definitely haven't dragged the belly. It first happened after I'd only driven the car for 11 miles, and then 180 miles later. Of course, maybe the previous owner did.

I'll add the fuel filters to the list of things to ask about, thanks.

Have they physically checked the fuel level in the car?

I had one that had a random fuel level sender in it. Was reading full but actually was empty, sender was working backwards.

The bit that confused me is I ordered a new one on the part number from the old one, trouble is it was the wrong one.

Watch the laptop diagnoses. they give the mechanic a list of problems to work on so they replace all these problems one by one until you end up with a huge bill. Renault tried it with me on my laguna. computer reported about 5 problems. ended up it was a heat sensor, but this was after the mechanic replaced the distributor cap I was lucky he went for the sensor next although you would think a sensor would be the first thing to test.!!!

That's crazy! You'd think they could only charge you for rectifying what was actually wrong!!! Sounds like a good racket to be in.

Thats just wrong. If I did that it would be considered a miss diagnosis, the customer would pay for the faulty part and the garage would pay for the other items and I would get my a$$ kicked for getting it wrong (doesnt happen to often luckily enough).

Skoda have a guided fault finding system which should lead you to the fault, or at least very close to it if you read the results correctly.

That sounds a much more fair and professional approach.

Found this on a VW forum:

http://www.volkswagenforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=652

Looks promising. I'll be talking to the chief technician about this tomorrow.

Been a while, but I thought I'd give a quick update in case anyone else encounters the same problem, although I don't have anything useful to report.

The dealer had the car for just over a month, and placed a number of parts (including the fuel pump in/near the tank). However, when they returned it the car was having trouble starting on occasion, the fuel gauge was stuck on full and occasionally the cruise control just wouldn't work.

I contacted them and told them I wanted to return the car and arrange a replacement. They tried to talk me into letting them fix the car, but I was politely insistent. When I was driving the car back down to them, the engine died again, but I managed to get it started after five minutes of repeatedly trying to start it/screaming/praying/etc.

Anyway, the technicians are still working on the car, without any luck as yet as far as I know. As for me, I'm the proud owner of a brand new Octavia 1.9TDi Elegance in stone grey metallic, which the dealer gave me a good discount on and arranged an excellent finance plan for.

glad to hear you finally manged to sort it out, but it seems the original problem is still unresolved. i'm still quessing it's the immobilizer gone down the kermit!

Have they tried relay 109 or the Octy II equivelant?? I know it's an Octy II but that was a not uncommon problem with the Octy I.

I have no idea what relay 109 is, so I'm afraid I can't tell you I will however continue to ask the dealer periodically whether they've sorted it out, as I'm curious to know what the problem is.