Greetings,

My 96 850 turbo (wagon) recentlyhad an oil change. I had to have a shop do the change b/c the drain plug was frozen (from previous owner) in to the oil pan. The oil that came out of the car was 10/30 regular oil, replace w/ 10/30 synthetic, along w/ a new oil filter (OEM). The car drove fine on the way home ~10 miles on the freeway & ~5mi through the city and was parked for 2 days. Yesterday I got in my car and drove it to the gas station to fill up , tank was very low - (miles to zero was under 30). After filling up the car died about 1 mile later down the road and would not restart, let it sit for about a minute and it started up fine - then died again about 1-2 minutes later. This kept happening all the way home, it would die and sit for ~30 seconds and then start right up again. [:@] All the dash lights would come on when the car dies.

Car has ~62k miles.

Any ideas?

oldvovo.

 

Bad fuel? Bad fuel pump? Driving without fuel in the tank is not good for the pump since the fuel is used to cool it. The pump might have been close to EOL (end of life) and the last overheating just killed it. Just some wild guessing.

 

Is 60,000 miles close to the normal life of an 850 fuel pump?

 

60K does not sound like a lot.

 

But the age ofit does have something to say. The pump is suspect.Changing the fuel filter will help also.

 

Isn't there a way to measure the PSI at the fuel rail? Changing the pump just in case isn't exactly cheap

 

I used to work for a gasoline pump manufacturer. Water in an underground storage tank could do that to your car. You could try and go to the fuelling station and ask them to print out a alarm history report from the Veeder Root tank gauging system and see if they had a high water alarm in the tank.

 

worth a shot - it was running normal until I filled it up....

Thanks.

 

There is a schrader valve on the end of the fuel rail near the throttle body.

Does the car do anything before it dies aka cough and sputter?

 

Could also be that the crud in the bottom of the tank was stirred up by filling it after it was so low, and the crud kep getting sucked into the filter. As I always say, start with the easy stuff first....change the fuel filter and see what happens

 

I, too, was going to suggest a fuel issue.

I recall letting The Anvil run dry, ONCE, and for about two weeks he would run rough, stall at stop lights, or just chug and bang and knock as I pulled away causing some weird looks (anger to giggles)from other drivers. Hated [sm=smiley7.gif]that.

It turned out to be air in the line and finally cleared up one day.

Have not let thetrip computer show below the 100klms left since then as I rather not go through that again.

Can aguage be added inline to monitor preasure? If anything, guages under the hood look kinda cool [sm=smokin.gif]

I hope that you can solve this as no time is a good time for this to happen, especially during the summer []. And 60k is way too low for this type of failure. I have over three hundred and sixteen kilometers on mine and no problems, unless I let it run out again


[sm=icon_cheers.gif]

 

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.
A neighbor (who has owned an 850 in the past) said this happened to him once and it turned out he didn't tighten down the gas cap enough... does that make sense? < I'll try that , then check fuel pressure and move onto the filter and pump if I have to.

 

That would trigger a CEL but I don't know if it would cause the car to malfunction.

 

Yep, I would believe it would cause the CEL, but not lousy performance. It does sound like a fuel issue though

 

Just for the future... what is 'CEL' ?

 

Cheeck engine light.