I was driving on nearly an empty tank of gas last week, when I noticed a jerking, stalling sensation in my car. I drive a manual transmission. This jerking, stalling went on for quite some time, until I pulled into a gas station and filled up. After this, there seemed to be no problems. Guess the solution was to gas up, right?! Not! Four days later, on a nearly full tank of gas, I was driving on a highway when my car repeated the scenario: jerking, stalling, and just shut down. I couldn?t even start the car, after many attempts. Praying for a miracle and not to have to get towed, I waited for three minutes, and then started my car and drove home and then later to an appointment. Yesterday, I took the car into the Ford dealer, who said the situation did not repeat itself. They plugged it into their diagnostic machine, which couldn?t pick up any diagnostic codes. They even drove the car around, and couldn?t find anything that was abnormal with its performance. The service manager called me and said he suspected that the fuel pump needed to be replaced, and that it would cost about $1,000 with labor. WOW! I asked him if the fuel pressure was ok, and he said that it read that it was ok. Then, I asked him if we could just do the fuel filter (even though I had replaced it last year) and he said that wouldn?t make a difference.
Help! Do I go ahead and get my fuel pump replaced? What else could my 2006 Focus, which only has about 50,000 miles on it (and I take immaculate care of it), have issues with?
Here’s someone who had a similar problem. He said there’s some material inside the gas tank that flakes off and can clog the inlet screen on the fuel pump. He said the problem went away after he dropped his gas tank and cleaned the screen:
Thank you for this! But, mine also happened to me as I was driving, 60 miles per hour, it just died. I’ll ask Ford about this. Do they clean the screens inside the fuel tank when replacing the fuel filter?
This kind of problem is a tough one so I’ll just throw out some points for consideration.
If you replace the pump you do not have to have the dealer do it. This job can be done cheaper elsewhere with the use of aftermarket parts. The Ford dealer will use an OEM from Ford pump so the job will be higher in price.
It’s also not that rare for a fuel pump to act up like this. Fuel pressure may be fine, the car may run great, but it will take spells when the pump hiccups so to speak.
Running the fuel level low enough to cause the car to buck can damage a fuel pump as the pumps use the gasoline to lubricate and cool themselves.
This could actually be caused by something completely different but with no codes present that could turn into a huge guessing game. Hope that helps anyway.
Thank you so much for your help. Shall I just go ahead and replace the fuel filter (even though I did it last year) just to see if it happens again? I am very guilty of running my tank to near empty, all the time, by the way…
That link MB posted last week said that all tanks should be thoroughly cleaned when a new pump is put in, I wonder if that ment dropping the tank to get it “tanked”.
Do they clean the screens inside the fuel tank when replacing the fuel filter?
No.