Not always; air can get "sucked into" the line without diesel getting out when the engine's running. I remember helping a taxi driver out at the roadside once cos he needed to bleed the injectors, and needed 2 pairs of hands to do it.

As for a priming issue - there is no primer pump on the VAG TDi engines! If you meant the glow-plugs, that's an electrical pre-heating system, not part of the fuel system.

Regarding the MAF, does the car perform as it should if you push it to a high rev (for my Elegance 1.9TDi, which is 110bhp whereas the Ambiente is 90bhp) or do you suddenly and mysteriously lose a lot of 'oomph'? I only throw that out as in my case it seems that was a sure sign of the MAF.

I'd also add that it was

I've had similar problems with my TDi, and tried most of the above with no luck.

It turned out that the Injection Pump timing was quite retarded (still just 'within limits') so when starting with the engine completely cold (ie from overnight) the fuel wasn't being injected at exactly the right moment, so it cranked for a good 5secs and was really 'lumpy' until the ECU takes over and sorts the injection timing.

It may also account for the drop in performance you were talking about.

It's very easy to check the timing if you can get hold of VAG-COM.

HTH

Pete

I remember helping a taxi driver out at the roadside once cos he needed to bleed the injectors, and needed 2 pairs of hands to do it.

Hee hee helping a taxi driver.. you must be a real knight of the road or an AA man by profession

It's very easy to check the timing if you can get hold of VAG-COM.

Thanks for the the tip, Pete.

Re: VAG-COM, I've heard it mentioned but thought it was someithng just dealers had. I assumed it was a program running on a laptop (but that needed some fancy interface and book of codes to interpret the results).

Anyway I think I might end up going to a local independent Skoda garage I've just found in Nottingham. Will post to let people know if they're any good. (If anyone's interested).

Re: VAG-COM, I've heard it mentioned but thought it was someithng just dealers had. I assumed it was a program running on a laptop (but that needed some fancy interface and book of codes to interpret the results).

Anyway I think I might end up going to a local independent Skoda garage I've just found in Nottingham. Will post to let people know if they're any good. (If anyone's interested).

VAG-COM is available to anyone that wants to buy it - checkout Ross-Tech: VAG-COM. You get a cable/interface and the software to install on ur laptop. There is a mass of posts on here about it & how to use it

Let us know how you get on.