Discussion
GaryST220 said:
I'm getting 0.5mpg better than you 
GaryST220 said:
Hope I didnt jinx it!Mine failed just outside of Milton Keynes on Saturday, after travelling from Norwich. It started going flat around 4000rpm so I turned around, made it to just outside of Cambridge and was struggling to hold load over 2000rpm so had to call out recovery.
I would be interested to know if you had any issues leading up to this, for example -
More difficult to start with less than 1/4 tank
Excess pressure release from the cap when filling up
A drop in fuel economy
Also what brand of fuel.
Mine showed other symptoms, my fuel trims were adding alot more fuel than desired as the pump was struggling to keep up with demand, and this was about a year ago, but I wasnt going to spend £300-400 on replacing something that might have been the cause of that.
Have you had it replaced yet?
Kidders said:
Hope I didnt jinx it!
Mine failed just outside of Milton Keynes on Saturday, after travelling from Norwich. It started going flat around 4000rpm so I turned around, made it to just outside of Cambridge and was struggling to hold load over 2000rpm so had to call out recovery.
I would be interested to know if you had any issues leading up to this, for example -
More difficult to start with less than 1/4 tank
Excess pressure release from the cap when filling up
A drop in fuel economy
Also what brand of fuel.
Mine showed other symptoms, my fuel trims were adding alot more fuel than desired as the pump was struggling to keep up with demand, and this was about a year ago, but I wasnt going to spend £300-400 on replacing something that might have been the cause of that.
Have you had it replaced yet?
The only warning I got was the car refusing to start a few months prior. I called the AA out and they smacked the bottom of the fuel tank while I was cranking it and it sprung into life. Other than that, and the day of complete failure as shown in the video, it was faultless.Mine failed just outside of Milton Keynes on Saturday, after travelling from Norwich. It started going flat around 4000rpm so I turned around, made it to just outside of Cambridge and was struggling to hold load over 2000rpm so had to call out recovery.
I would be interested to know if you had any issues leading up to this, for example -
More difficult to start with less than 1/4 tank
Excess pressure release from the cap when filling up
A drop in fuel economy
Also what brand of fuel.
Mine showed other symptoms, my fuel trims were adding alot more fuel than desired as the pump was struggling to keep up with demand, and this was about a year ago, but I wasnt going to spend £300-400 on replacing something that might have been the cause of that.
Have you had it replaced yet?
As for having it replaced...I did it myself 2 years ago (never seen the point uploading the video till now). Anyway, I don't need it any more
Edited by GaryST220 on Thursday 30th May 19:26
neiljohnson said:
Fuel pumps just go on these & cause misfires & a severe lack of power especially if you put the engine under load.
First thing I thought on the first one I done was the cats were blocked if you've ever experienced that?
I've had a broken up cat that rattled, it caused very little performance difference and still passed MOT, I would say in all my years being associated with working on cars (since the late 90's) I've only seen this one.First thing I thought on the first one I done was the cats were blocked if you've ever experienced that?
The ST220 has the usual pre-cat sensors and well as post cat lambdas, any issue with them would be an almost guaranteed EML.
When a fuel pump fails, you don't always get any codes, the likely ones are PO171/P0174 lean on banks 1 or 2, or P0170 which is a fuel trim malfunction, meaning the PCM cannot adjust the injector duration or output of the pump enough to meet demand.
But in my case, nothing at all, even when I could barely get to 30-40mph from a junction. And the best bit, was after getting home, I drove the car and it worked fine!
Here is the pump body with filter sock attached after dismantling.
And the bottom of the 'swirl pot' that the pump sits in. Luckily, nothing deposited in the tank.
The purpose of this thread is to find out how many have suffered from failure, and try to piece together what caused its demise. Is it modern fuels, with a higher content of E5/E10 in some cases? Is it just poor design? Did running low on fuel cause the pump to run slightly dry and accelerate wear?
I first noticed signs of an issue about a year ago, when I started to get a slight pink on WOT gear changes, this coincided with warmer weather/higher inlet temperatures, high octane fuel with octane booster didnt cure it!
It seems the pump was unable to keep up in these high load circumstances, but the engine ran generally fine otherwise. But like most things like this, the drop is so gradual you don't notice. Its completely transformed with the new pump over 4000rpm, so although I'm £300 down its solved my odd issues and boosted performance I didn't even know had gone!
Howard- said:
Is that £300 for the just pump? How easy is it to fit? Remove rear seats, remove old pump, drop new one in?
Its the pump and sender assembly, I used a VDO pump, not the original make but a good OEM none the less. YOu can split the unit to replace just the pump, as it shares the same part as the Mk1 Focus RS there is scope for upgrade if needed but on a standard or up to 250bhp a 225 ltr/hr pump is fine.You have two options, first is drop the tank, the second is enlarge the whole under the seat to allow the unit to be remove from the top. It takes about 20 minutes for the second option. Aviation tin snips in action, not easy to get a nice cut but I came up with a solution afterwards.
Sealed the edges with some very good gorilla tape, and then fabricated a plastic cover to the original grommet fits in the top, then glued the cover in place, can easily be prised up in the future and its watertight.
I will be starting a forum and technical resource for the 220's soon, as there isnt enough info out there for dealing with these sort of problems.
Howard- said:
I'm guessing the engine died? Could you not source another and drop it in?! Seems a little drastic!
No, not really. I would not trust a second hand engine and I didn't have the inclination to rebuild my existing engine (although in hindsight swapping a single piston is rather easy). Not to mention it was mid-November and too dark and cold after work to fix on my driveway. There were other factors too, the bottoms of the doors were rusting on the inside, the hydraulics were failing and I had had the gearbox out 3 times in 12 months. It was time to call it a day.
Anyway, as not to hijack Kidders’ thread, here is my contribution…
My fuel pump failed with a full tank of fuel, and the car had always been ran on Shell V Power for the previous 50,000 miles. As you can see in the first picture the loom was damaged.
I chose to cut the pump out, sod dropping the tank on a car worth £3-4k. I also found it difficult to remove the pump with a tank full of fuel so I siphoned half of it out. I got a second hand pump from a scrap yard for £70, and some tin snips from B&Q – easy.
Edited by GaryST220 on Sunday 2nd June 18:54
Have to say I agree, I don't like the idea of cutting a hole in anything, but my car is ten years old now, out of warranty, and with a decent cover made up, hidden under the seat, its not the end of the world. It was far more preferable to dropping the tank.
There seems to be a spate of fuel pumps going at the moment but only one i've seen where the insides has destroyed themselves, its normally that poor connection/corrosion issue.
There seems to be a spate of fuel pumps going at the moment but only one i've seen where the insides has destroyed themselves, its normally that poor connection/corrosion issue.
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