Over the past week or so my car, a 1998 Escort Gti Estate, started devoping a problem where I would be driving along and the engine would sort of 'stutter', as if the the engine momentarily cut out and then kicked back in

Whether this has any bearing on the issue I don't know but during the week before it started happening two things occured, one being that I changed the spark plugs, the other that I'd let it run a lot lower on fuel than I usually do, well under a quarter of a tank

Thinking it could be a case of crud being dragged up from the tank I filled it right up and and added some injector cleaner to see if that would help

No immediate improvement but I thought give it time for the cleaner to work it's way through the system, however by the time I'd done around 35-40 miles things got worse

Three days ago the engine just shut off on me without any sort of warning such as 'spluttering' etc and wouldn't start back up, turn the ignition on and the usual lights would light up on the console but the engine just didn't turn over at all

Tried to bump start it but no luck there either

Left the car standing for about 45 minutes, put the key in the ignition, turned it ... and the damn thing started up first time

The following day (last night) I put the old plugs back in and had the local garage fit a new fuel fiter, then proceeded to take it for a short drive to see what happened

Same thing, went for about a mile and a half (uphill mostly) then it cut out on me, and the same behaviour if I tried restarting it

This time however even after being left standing overnight it still wouldn't start, engine not turning over when I turn the key in the ignition

Not really sure how to go about finding the problem so I'm looking for suggestions

It kinda feels like a fuel problem and the old fuel filter was extremely dirty, but the fact it doesn't turn over with the key in the ignition suggests there might be something else going on

Or is there perhaps some kind of 'cut-off' device in play that stops the thing turning over on the ignition key if there's no fuel getting through?

Starter motor's unlikely as that wouldn't cause it to just cut out whilst it's running

I don't think it's something like dodgy plugs, ht leads or coil because if it were wouldn't the car be running at least a little bit rough?

When it's running it runs really well and pretty much drives smooth as hell

Would an ignition switch problem prevent it bump-starting? Tried wiggling the key about in the ignition, but everything's lighting up as it should anyway


Anyone have any ideas?