This often happens on Porsche models too. I've lost count of the number of flat batteries I've attended at the home address on Porsche's. It seems many of them are only used infrequently, and spend long periods of time sat in the garage, during which time the battery discharges and doesn't recover. The immobiliser system then needs re-synchronising before the engine will start.

Moral of the story. If you have a Porsche and only want to use it on nice sunny days, keep the battery charged.

Any thoughts on this one? www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2002-VOLVO-V70-S-20V-AUTO-SILVE...e

Looks OK but if you test drive it make sure that autobox works faultlessly, they can start to play up as they get older.

Also check all electrics as they were weaker on the earlier cars, they can suffer from instrument cluster failure - Volvo improved them and these later cars will have chrome rings around the dials....

Have been informed that a local ( non BMW main dealer ) garage has the equipment to update the service history if the service is carried out by them.

So that leaves me with the problem as they arn't prepared to enter the data on behalf of another garage : fair comment.

Solved:Had a similar problem every other day. whilst driving I would lose throttle response, erratic idle and no power and need to hold throttle down and eventually very slowly the rpm comes up and it would suddenly clear and rev up high with a puff of black smoke?? no fault codes.

Removed throttle body and EGR body, but other than needing a clean it did not fix fault. Noted a week later, with the engine cover off, a lot of air was bleeding into and running along through the clear fuel pipe across front of the engine, removed the fuel line quick connect coupler fittings fitted to either side of the filter, cleaned seals inside fitting and re seated filter housing and the screw top valve on top of fuel filter housing, reassembled, used a cheep halfords fuel primer / vacuum pump to assist in getting the pump primed (connected to the return fuel pipe) when it started no air bubbles were seen running along pipe and the fault has not reoccurred after 4 weeks. (must be safe to think it is sorted but it will probably go and play up again tomorrow now i have posted this)

What you definitely don't do is slacken an injector pipe on any common rail diesel engine. The operating pressures can get as high as 30,000psi, and so slackening a pipe is potentially dangerous.

What you could do is use a stethoscope placed close to each injector in turn and listen for one that's noisy. You may be able to detect on which cylinder fuel is jetting by the increased noise, assuming of course that an injector is the cause.

Injector cleaner might help, but usually the cause is worn nozzles, not blocked nozzles as does happen with petrol injectors. Common Rail Diesel fuel systems have several injection phases, for pre, main, and post injection. This is why each injector has a code which must be programmed into the ECM so that it knows how to operate each injector correctly. Injectors are very precisely set up, and is certainly not a DIY job. A good diesel specialist will be able to test your injectors for operation and wear, and make sure they're correctly programmed to the ECM.