1.8TDDI loss of power after fuel filter change
Fully serviced the car last week but forgot the fuel filter, did it on sunday and there is a marked loss in power.
I've re-fitted 3x, (it's the 2 pipes and 1 cup? arrangement) ensuring the butterfly clip is getting the filter but no difference.
The main hill to work that I could fly up in 5th doing 60 required 4th to do 50 (and I was tempted to drop to 3rd).
I'm hoping I've got a duff filter so I've got the missus getting a proper replacement for me but is there anything I might have missed?
I pre-primed the filter when I fitted it and the engine started straight away, runs very smooth and this morning with a hard frost it started much better than it had been (the old filter had been missed at the last service and was black when I took it off, reckon it wasn't stopping much water). No lights on the dashboard, nothing to indicate a problem.
I’m 99% sure I fitted the pipes correctly (they would get in each others way otherwise) but what would happen if I deliberately fitted them back to front as a test? Just run out of fuel or would it damage the engine. I couldn’t work out the indication on the filters, as the originally fitted bosch one had a greyed half circle and a clear half circle around the pipes, the replacement had arrows. So I fitted like for like positions using the cup/butterfly fitting as the base.
In for it’s MOT on Tuesday which I reckon it’ll pass (still revs to 4K, but takes forever under load) as the arse end blows very clean.