br1anstorm
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- United Kingdom
I have a stock 93 XJ 4-litre 'Sport' with auto box, owned since new, not hard-used, has now done 130k miles.
Today after running for a couple of miles from cold, when turning a street corner, the engine suddenly died. Stopped instantly. No stutter, no warning. Nada. After a brief pause, I made a couple of attempts to start it. Nothing - not even a click.... though lights etc all suggested there was good battery power. Five minutes later, it started perfectly as soon as the key turned, and as if nothing had happened. The rest of the day, no problems.
Next time, will it cut out and die at 50 mph on the highway without warning?
I'm trying to approach this systematically. I'm assuming total sudden shutdown suggests some electrical or control issue, not dirty fuel, blocked filter or similar fuelling problem. So I have checked the obvious electrical things:
Is it the CPS, or some other gizmo, now intermittently misbehaving? I'm not enough of an engineer to run tests with meters etc, but is there anything I can check, spray, or tweak to verify?
One more possible clue. Very occasionally, like about once in 100 starts or once in a couple of months, it won't start and fire first time. I have to floor the pedal and keep cranking. After about 8-10 seconds, it catches, fires, and runs like normal. Then it doesn't happen again for months. Is this a pointer to something being not quite right? Or is it totally unrelated to the "sudden death" problem that has just shown up?
Intermittent problems are always the worst ones. But I am now very worried that the engine will cut out unexpectedly and totally in a situation (like at speed or overtaking on the highway) that could be dangerous or fatal.
Today after running for a couple of miles from cold, when turning a street corner, the engine suddenly died. Stopped instantly. No stutter, no warning. Nada. After a brief pause, I made a couple of attempts to start it. Nothing - not even a click.... though lights etc all suggested there was good battery power. Five minutes later, it started perfectly as soon as the key turned, and as if nothing had happened. The rest of the day, no problems.
Next time, will it cut out and die at 50 mph on the highway without warning?
I'm trying to approach this systematically. I'm assuming total sudden shutdown suggests some electrical or control issue, not dirty fuel, blocked filter or similar fuelling problem. So I have checked the obvious electrical things:
- battery is a good, new, Optima
- battery connections are good and tight
- charging circuit seems fine according to the gauge
Is it the CPS, or some other gizmo, now intermittently misbehaving? I'm not enough of an engineer to run tests with meters etc, but is there anything I can check, spray, or tweak to verify?
One more possible clue. Very occasionally, like about once in 100 starts or once in a couple of months, it won't start and fire first time. I have to floor the pedal and keep cranking. After about 8-10 seconds, it catches, fires, and runs like normal. Then it doesn't happen again for months. Is this a pointer to something being not quite right? Or is it totally unrelated to the "sudden death" problem that has just shown up?
Intermittent problems are always the worst ones. But I am now very worried that the engine will cut out unexpectedly and totally in a situation (like at speed or overtaking on the highway) that could be dangerous or fatal.