I have a 1995 Disco and recently I have experienced the car suddenly stalling whilst driving. It remains impossible to restart for approx 10 minutes, and then all ok. Garage are stumped and wonder if anyone out there has experienced this problem and found an answer. I do not think it is fuel. Love the car to bits and do not want to send to it's maker, but it may become dangerous if whilst overtaking or whatever it decides now is the time to do another stall.

 

Is it a Tdi or a V8 ?

 

You are going to need to give us a little help here. Any check engine light, what sort of tune related maintance has it had, what octane gas are you running, have you replaced your fuel filter, how about the fuel pump relay????????????????
Mike

 

Is it a complete stall ie. nothing at all, completely dead, no spark orno fuel ?

What is the Odometre reading?

 

It is a TDI Manual

 

It is a complete stall. As you drive along suddenly you notice the power going and the engine dies. If you try to restart, the engine turns over but does not fire. Leave it for 5 to 10 mins and it starts no problem and drives completely normal. I think we have ruled out fuel issues and wondered if there was some electric gismo playing up perhaps. The car has a major service every twelve months during which time it will cover circa 10 to 12k miles. It has done 116,000 miles since new. Appreciate your interest here.

 

The car is diesel.

 

As a diesel, some fuel issue is about the only thing that will stall the engine, be it a filter, fump or what have you.
Mike

 

The only electrickery on a '95 Tdi is the single wire to the stop solenoid in the injection pump. If the contacts to that are dirty or loose it will have a similar symptom to turning the ignition key off while driving.

If it's not that connector, the stop solenoid itself may be faulty - it's about a £10 part if you buy it from Paddockspares.com and with the aid of a Haynes manual you can replace it yourself in about 20 minutes, with little or no mechanical experience.

Breaks or shorts in the stop solenoid wire are a third possibility - bit of a pain to trace though, so check the terminal connection and the stop solenoid itself first.

There's no ECU on a '95 Tdi, earliest diesel ECU's are TD5 onwards, the later 300 Tdi's have an electronic fuel delivery control, instead of the mechanical one on the early 300 and 200 Tdis, but I'd hardly call it an 'ECU'. So won't be something 'electronic' unless it's the stop solenoid or the wire for it.

The only other thing I can think of that might cause this sort of behaviour, would be a failing lift pump - but the engine will cough, splutter and die rather than cutting cleanly and stopping immediately if it's either the lift or injection pump that's causing the fuel stoppage.

As was said above - it won't be air that's the problem. Lack of air will make it chuck loads of black, sooty smoke out the back before it stops unless the engine is deprived of all air immediately - can't see how that would happen myself.

My money is on the stop solenoid connector being loose or dirty. Let me know if you don't have any joy with it.

Cheers,

 

Hi Wheston and all that have tried to help you.

I have been experiencing exactly the same problem that you have described - driving along - engine looses power - well, it's more when the excelerator get pushed down nothing happens and then the engine dies. First I was tlod it's the compression, then I was told it was the diesel pump. After MOT repairs to Fuel Filter, it no longer dies on me as quick, but I cannot get the engine to go faster than 40mph or rev higher than 2300revs and eventually it will stop.

My question to you:

Have you managed to find a solution?

I'm very close to having a new diesel pump fitted which I've been told costs £1000.