My car won't start :(

[C4R 100N]

Thanks to all of the wonderful posters here, I am delighted to say that my car is back on the road after I replaced the fuel pump. I don't recommend doing this yourself if you are rich enough to pay someone else to do it.

I sourced the VDO fuel pump form the USA for 145USD plus shipping to Australia. The cheapest that I could buy it locally for was 540AUD

I really appreciate all of the tips, help and advice that I received here in this community. It made my job a lot easier. This job was very fiddly and complicated. The 22 year old plastic housing scared me. At over one thousand dollars new, I knew that I had to be careful and probably lucky too.

I have assembled a document detailing my 'adventure' and am posting it here. It may be good for a laugh!

Fuel_Pump_notesV2.pdf

Thanks again!

[MikkiJayne]

Yay!

[johnny_quattro]

Triple yay from me. The documentation was an interesting read. I'm so pleased you got it sorted.

[moltuae]

Nicely done!

I wouldn't have thought it necessary to "celebrate with several whiskeys" after sitting in the boot for hours getting high on petrol fumes.

[C4R 100N]

After driving my S8 and guzzling 72.8 litres of fuel from the tank, I am happy to report that the car started more or less instantly each time, and was down to the reserve with the petrol bowser tell tale indicator showing in the cluster display when I finally filled up.

This indicates to me that I must have installed the fuel pump housing properly and that it is safe for me to assume that this particular repair measure is complete. The Audi documentation says that I should perform a certain fuel leak test on an empty tank, but I think that I can forgo this and just drive the car with confidence. Yes?

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

Yay!

I'll second that! I am so relieved.

Originally Posted by johnny_quattro

Triple yay from me. The documentation was an interesting read. I'm so pleased you got it sorted.

Glad you found the pdf interesting. The repair was an adventure for me and an exercise in patience! I am also very pleased to have fixed the problem with so little diagnostics.

Originally Posted by moltuae

Nicely done!

I wouldn't have thought it necessary to "celebrate with several whiskeys" after sitting in the boot for hours getting high on petrol fumes.

Thank you, thank you! My sense of smell has suffered since the back seat of my C4 A6 Avant caught on fire during a road trip a couple of years ago. I had to drag the seat out of the car and put the fire out with a bottle of orange juice.

I think that lack of smell affected me psychologically when I did this job, because I could not really smell the petrol and so, did not get high on the fumes. (Kind of like the logic of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal if you have read Douglas Adams) Consequently, I felt that I did need to celebrate with some whiskey!

[MikkiJayne]

I shall be sure to keep a towel on my head next time I do the job

[moltuae]

if you have read Douglas Adams

If you think of my username as initials you might notice it stands for something (something that equals 42). I've always been a big fan of Douglas Adams' work.

[C4R 100N]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

I shall be sure to keep a towel on my head next time I do the job

Towels are certainly indispensable! If only to mop up the spilt fuel. The sound deadening material layer certainly suffered in my boot from the spillage.

The towel would have come in handy muffling the Vogon poetry too, come to think of it.

Anyone ever play this game? Took me ages to finish it as a youth. It was one of my favourites back on the good old days of DOS - TRS-DOS that is!

Memories!
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