My Corrado just almost got me killed!!!!

[Jonny Chee 0]

:mad:

 

For the last few days my G60 has been cutting out regularly and refusing to start again for a few minutes! It has happened at junctions and slow moving driving so far.

 

Well tonight it has got worse. TWICE on my 15 minute drive home from work tonight it cut out again. First time at an island and wouldn't start for five minutes.

 

The second time was on a bypass, I was doing around 50 mph in heavy rain in the outside lane when it just died on me again! I had lots of traffic behind me and an articluated lorry on my inside. I had to switch on my hazards rapidly and cut across the approaching lorry into the inside lane before coming to a stop. This time it was a good fifteen minutes before it would fire again. It just keep trying to turn over but not firing.

 

Finally it got going again and I made it home.

 

My brother took it into a local garage who feel it could be the ignition amplifier. They have booked me in for 8am in the morning.

 

Has this happened to anybody before and was the ignition amplifier the cause?

 

:(

[Joe M 0]

I had this on my old 16v and the cause was the ignition amplifier, so it sounds feasible. Cant say ive heard of it happening on a g60 before though.

[dr_mat 0]

Could also be the dizzy/rotor arm etc..

Had same symptoms on an old Jetta TX once..

[Bally 0]

I had a simliar problem, I thought it was the starter, but cleaned the wire on the main feed to starter which was very dirty, cleaned up & seems fine, although I don't trust it to last very long before it facks up again! :roll:

[vwdubs 0]

My corrado almost gets me killed everytime I get in it, or is that me driving :shock:

[Jonny Chee 0]

My G60 is now in the garage having the ingition amplifier done. It cut out twice on the two mile trip and refused to start at all.

 

I had to get towed to the garage by my brother in his J' Reg'd Ford Fiesta! How embarassing... :oops:

[Bally 0]

Blimey, goodluck with it mate..

[Jonny Chee 0]

Just got car back from garage. He said it started and then ran and ran and ran! He could find no fault! Aggghh! It drove home ok. What am I to do? It's inevitably gonna happen again....

[h100vw 0]

I doubt it would be the ign amp as a G60, doesn't have one. You have the Hall sender in the dissy which feeds a signal to the ECU. The ECU sees the input and turns on the fuel pump via the fuel pump relay. The ECU fires the injectors as you would expect, it also triggers the coil to output the sparks.

 

Did you have the ECU relay looked at? Fuel pump relays can go the same way, dry joints. Both easy to check and cheap to replace. Last but not least the Hall sender, the easiest way to check, is by replacement. They are expensive but you can get one off any Digifant engined car with a PB engine Passats, Golf, Jettas, probably some others too.

 

You are a bit stuck as it is intermittent, if it is doing it everytime you go out there is every likelihood that it will fail permanently soon.

 

My mates gave a couple of hiccoughs in the outside lane and then failed a week later. It would quit after almost 10 minutes from cold, exactly. He rang me up and I could hear it in the background. All of a sudden it stopped, it had been on 10 mins. He got another from a mate and even though secondhand and much older, it has been running perfect since.

 

Check the ECU relay for dry joints first..

Gavin

[vwdubs 0]

I think its a case now of establishing when this happens, is it always at a certain time?, ie After a certain amount of time driving, at a certain speed (rev speed) at a certain time of the day ie Morning and damp?

 

I can not help you with the solution as I have had no experience of this but elimination may help solve your problem.

 

H100VW's message was written at same time so you may want to ignore me :)

[Garry 0]

I'm with Gavin on that one Jonny

 

My MK1 did exactly the same a while ago - turned out to be a dry joint on the fuel pump relay

[WoodyG60 0]

Just had similar problem on my G60 - was cutting out & refusing to start until cool. Turns out I had two problems - faulty fusebox sending out too low a voltage to the distributor, & dizzy itself was knackered.

 

Both have been replaced & the car is running better than it has been for years! :-P

[Henny 0]

I'm with Gav on this with a slight bias towards it being the Dizzy that's at fault...

[2cc 0]

Fuel pump is a possibility. Mine got tired and gave the symptoms you describe. New one, no probs.

[Jonny Chee 0]

Hmmm. Just took it to another garage who diagnosed it as being the distributor. Its getting worse. Couldn't even get all the way home as it just kept dying on me! Gonna replace the dizzy Monday and probably the coil as well.

 

I'm missing driving it already!

[Supercharged 2]

Jonny Chee, did the new Dizzy sort this out??

[junkie 0]

Sounds like mine agre with h100vw faulty relay for ECU also had fusebox problem but not a clue what sorry!!

[Andy D 0]

Had the same problem with mine it was the hall sensor in the dissy quite a common fault when they get old.

[aclwalker 3]

This sounds like classic hall sender failure. I don't have a G60 but I guess it's got a traditional mechanical distributor with a hall sender inside it. The hall sender determines the position of the camshaft and replaces the mechanical points system on older cars if I remember correctly.

 

These tend to fail intermittantly and when they do fail, it's all or nothing, because the ignition simply cannot tell where the camshaft is in its cycle and so you get no spark whatsoever. In contrast, when my hall sender on the VR6 went the engine management took over and went to 'safe mode' (i.e. run like a dog), causing pulsing acceleration.

 

My old Golf's hall sender failed in exactly the same way as you describe and the car would start again and run great just minutes later but be completely dead before. I had to stop once at the very extreme tip of the arrow head bit of road between the motorway and an on-ramp once when it failed!

 

In my old Golf, the hall sender was a replaceable part but required dismantling of the entire distributor. This is not particularly difficult, except for a few awkward rings which needed the use of some old nails to compress them to get them out since the tool could not reach. It requires methodical disassembly and reassembly.

 

I also did this job on a Polo once but its hall sender was not removable, the distributor being peculiarly sealed. Luckily a new distributor was not that expensive (but was for the Golf).

 

I can't see a garage replacing just a hall sender and so will push for whole distributor. If you fancy doing it yourself then the procedure should be covered in the Haynes manuals for Golfs and it should be the same. A new hall sender kit cost around £35 if I remember correctly.

 

Good luck.