loss of power

[pulse]

hi all. had a little problem yesterday..... i dont usually take my car long journeys as ive only had it 3 months and i like to get to trust the car first , but yesterday i ventured about 50 miles away. everything was going great until i suddenly lost power. car was struggling to keep the revs up and eventually cut out..... when i started it back up, it was just the same.... i opened the water bottle to check that i had water in it, and the water just poured out, anyway, after about 5 mins of it just sitting there, it started back up and was fine.....  i checked the oil dipstick, cos i thought, head gasket, oil is not milky...... very confused.com

[Seanl]

What were the water and oil temps like?

[pulse]

they were ok, water temp never went above 70 all the trip.... just looked at it in daylight,,,, one of the spark plugs were loose and there was a oil patch where it looked like oil had been getting into spark plug... now dipstick oil clean, opened up oil filler cap, and theres a little gunk on the lid, but nowhere else, also i noticed last night that the hose pipe going into the thermostat was solid..... so maybe thermostat not working......   i dunno ,

[Ninja]

hi all. had a little problem yesterday..... i dont usually take my car long journeys as ive only had it 3 months and i like to get to trust the car first , but yesterday i ventured about 50 miles away. everything was going great until i suddenly lost power. car was struggling to keep the revs up and eventually cut out..... when i started it back up, it was just the same.... i opened the water bottle to check that i had water in it, and the water just poured out, anyway, after about 5 mins of it just sitting there, it started back up and was fine.....  i checked the oil dipstick, cos i thought, head gasket, oil is not milky...... very confused.com

If you open the water resivour when the engines hot, it will pour out everywhere. It's pressurised and super hot. Dangerous to do it in my opinion!

As for the cutting out, it could be a number of things. If the temps were ok, then the next thing I would ask is did the oil light flash when it cut out?

[Seanl]

Well I reckon you need a new thermostat if your water temps didnt go above 70. Should sit at 90 with no/very little change whatever driving condition. Oil temps between 94 and 106 should be about right depending on driving conditions and style.

[pulse]

cheers folks. gonna try thermostat , cars been running fine all day, but ive only been going short journeys.....  hopefully that will sort it out....

[thai-wronghorse]

Sounds to me as if it could be one of the classic failure points eg. Crank speed sensor, ecu or fuel pump relays. Although if you say this car only ever goes short distances it could be that its just clogged up with crap. Check the breather pipes and throttle body.

[Seanl]

A dodgy stat wouldn't cause your problems, but that's an additional thing I would suggest you change. Low engine temps coupled with short drives will make for premature wear on your engine as well.

[javalin]

cranks sensor, or dodgy coil (plugs/leads/etc) most likely.

what engine is it?

[pulse]

ok... little update on a old story....  after the last loss of power, nothing has happened, until the wednesday.... my heater matrix bust, so i stripped out all the dash, bought new matrix, new fan switch and new thermo. since i thought may as well do them all at once, fitted them all, bled the water system so there was no air locks, started car up, temp went up, fan kicked in, temp went down, ,,,, happy days. then half a hr later, i went out and total loss of power again.... took me ages to get him home. by this time i was pissed off, spent 3 days in the snow freezing rebuilding and the old problem arrose. so i went and bought myself a 5 door gti. will post pics up once my hubcentral spacers arrive so i can get my alloys on it.