Starts then cuts out.

[allstaruk]

Hi

As some of you may know my car is losing coolant, anyway I have been trying to find where this is going so I have the car up on axel stands at the front and the momnet the car was running fine yesteraday.

I have just been outside and gone to start the car so i can have another loook for the coolant leak and it fires up then runs for about a second and then cuts out. The car is low on petrol its at the bottom of the guage but the petol light hasn\'t come on, would this be an effect of the fact the car is up on axel stands at the front causeing the petrol to run to the back of the tank.

Or could this be the coolant is going into the engine, surely it wouldn\'t fire up though?

Any thoughts would be great.

Alan

[Kash_]

From what I remember, the engine will still fire up and run properly when coolant is leaking into the engine... I\'m sure someone will be able to confirm this? Also its a very bad idea leaving your fuel level that low, its just asking for trouble.. if the engine runs lean = rebuild !

[nikp]

My experience of coolant in the engine is that it will start, but sounds a bit of a struggle during idle due to there being coolent in a rotor housing - eventually it clears up and runs fine. Are you losing coolant from the expansion tank at all?

[chris]

low Fuel level is a definate cause of such a symptom, go get at least two cans of fuel and she should run fine

[allstaruk]

Right is starts now I\'ve put fuel in, obviously the angle its at as the front is on axel stands meant it wasn\'t picking up enough petrol,

Nik I don\'t thing the expansion tank is losing any it seems to only go down on the main filler neck, it takes about 200ml to fill it again and it doesn\'t seem to drop while I;m dirving only if I leave it overnight.

Al

[nikp]

Glad it starts ok now.

Mine never lost any whilst driving, and to start with didn\'t lose any externally. but as it got worse, it started to spit it out through the expansion tank.

You have some options - best thing to do would be to take it to a local garage and get them to perform a coolant pressure test on it for you (Any decent garage should be able to do this). If it loses pressure, with no external leaks, then it\'s likely to be coolant seal failure.

[allstaruk]

Cool I\'m not gonna get a chance to do that before I go on holiday so I\'ll have to do it when I get back.

The car starts as normal surely it wold be harder to start if it has coolant leak internally.

[banned advertiser]

I have had 2 engine failures with water seals being the cause. On both occassions it would start and run better once the water had been thrown out but run rough at start. If I did not drive the car daily the water build up would become so great for it to start and would have to tow start her, it could take up to a mile before the water had been thrown out and she would start, like a tractor then clearing.

So if she starts now but wont after your holiday its probably the reason why.

[nikp]

But then again, you may find it starts normally, and easily. Mine would - it was very easy to start from cold, and only sounded like a tractor on two occassions. It was harder to start when hot, but this is something that get progressively worse - the only way to know for sure is the pressure test.

[allstaruk]

Cool, mine starts easily everytime hot or cold, if the rotor seals go do they ever leak externally? I\'m sure once I saw some water on the ground I just can\'t seem to get it to happen again.

I will get the cooland system compression tested but I\'m afraid it will have to wait till I get back from my holidays.

Al