I'd really appreciate any suggestions or insights on this problem as I have no mechanical knowledge whatsover. I have read the various posts on the site re Golfs & other VWs cutting out, and also the helpful link to the Parkers site. I'm hoping that if I provide enough detail on the problem someone might be able to suggest a likely cause so I don't have to spend hundreds of pounds for a garage to do lengthy investigations.
I have a D Reg Mark 2 Golf. It has an intermittent problem whereby the engine loses power and won't rev. It kind of stutters along for a while, occasionally picking up and then dying away again. It happened, unnervingly, this morning on the M18. After about 5 miles the problem seemed to clear. Once it has started playing up like this it will stall in traffic queues unless I try to keep the revs up. If it stalls it always starts again immediately.
The problem first came up earlier this year. My local mechanic tried replacing the ignition leads and distributor cap but this made no difference. Dealer also suggested it might be some kind of vacuum effect in the fuel tank caused by unvented non-standard VW petrol tank cap. I tried changing the cap and the problem went away for a few months before returning last week and this morning.
The problem first occurred when my previous petrol cap got stuck (the lock broke) and I had to call the AA out to lever it out with pliers. I'm just wondering if any rust/dirt got into the tank when the old cap was being extracted - but this is just my uneducated guess and I know there might be lots of other explanations. At first the problem seemed only to occur when the tank was down to a 1/4 full but recently it has happened with an almost full tank.
I'd really appreciate any suggestions - I'd like to keep the car for a while but I don't want to start throwing money at it especially if doing so won't solve the problem.
Thanks in advance
Pete
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Argh.. sounds like the dreaded pierberg/solex carb issues raising their ugly heads again. There are quite a few very useful threads already on this site which can be found by searching for the name of the carb in the 'search' box at the top of the page.
Suspects for this stuttering behavior on the MK2 often include dodgy vacuum pipes, an iffy valve in the airbox, blocked jets and carb icing. The problem is (as you've discovered) that these things are often horribly intermittent and defy all attempts to diagnose logically.
Best bet is to troll through the searched archives and locate symptoms that mimic yours. Good luck! :)
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Hall sender failure does exactly what you describe, too.
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Kuang and Robert
Thanks very much for the suggestions. It is a bizarre problem as it started back in February then didn't happen again from May until now. I've done a thorough search of the HJ archives and other resources and I'm coming to the conclusion that rather than go through a lengthy and expensive process of trying to diagnose and deal with a wide range of potential causes it might be time to replace the old girl. She's done 189,000 miles and I suspect other bits might start to fail soon.
Thanks again for your help.
Pete
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