Car cuts off when driving and then won't start again until at least 30mins after

2003 Ford Focus TDCI 1.8
Car: Ford Focus
Year: 2003
Variant: TDCI 1.8
Categories: Running Rough, Starting & Power Loss
Hello,
Was driving along the motorway on sat at about 80mph in the fast lane, put my foot down and the engine just cut out and I had to coast across the road into the hard shoulder. after about half an hour I finally scrambled together my Rac details and was just about to phone them and thought I'd give it one last try after an attempt every10 mins or so up until then. It STARTED and was able to drive it home another 20 miles or so. Next day took it out for a drive on local roads, all seemed ok and then it cut out again again. Tried to restart but wouldn't. Kept on coming on with beep and showing the coil, battery and oil lights. Left for 2hours came back to car and it started again no problems. Was able to drive home.
I've booked it into the garage where I had it serviced a couple of weeks previous for them to have a look but I don't think they had any clues as to wait it could be.

Any suggestions. Is it lickely to be anything they did on the service although it was a mid service only the pollen filter and oil changed as per ford recomendations. None of the fuel filter etc was touched.

Many thanks

DT
Problem added: Jan 5, 2009 (15 years ago)
hi their work for ford the symptoms you show would point straight away to a defective cam position sensor and wiring they changed the grey sensor to a black one or vise versa, but new sensor and new plug and wire any difficultys 07902004967
Answered Jan 5, 2009 (15 years ago)
Thanks for info,
Just had call from garage, they did diagnostic check and confirmed it was the cam shaft sensor faulty like you said(nice work). So are replacing it, £100 fitted with the diagnoistic check.

Thanks for your help.

Lets hope that this is the problem, I remember I had something wrong with an old astra and it took ages to get to the route of the problem. They more or less replaced the whole engine.

I'll keep you posted on whether I break down again??

Cheers
DT
Answered Jan 6, 2009 (15 years ago)

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