Mondeo cut out/misfiring ideas needed!

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Hi all,

Some of you may be aware of the problems I have had with my car, over the past year and its now got to a point where if I don't manage to fix it by early 2011, I will have to get rid of it as long journeys make me feel stressed - I always feel I'm going to end up on the hard-shoulder.

Car:
Mondeo 2002 1.8 duratec 132,000 miles (previously owned by my Dad who pretty much only ever used this car on motorway to work, so the engine should be in excellent condition.)

The Problem:
Car will misfire 2krpm+ happens every couple of minutes usually but sometimes I can do a 2-3miles journey and not have any problems, its worst on the motorway, it feels like it just misses one cylinder and then is fine again and is especially bad on a long hill with slight gradient.
This I put up with, until about a month ago when car cut out completely, was driving along motorway, all of a sudden all dials go to 0, odometer and temp readouts blank out and interior light came on; after about 10secs of slowing down, I dropped a gear for a bit of engine braking to pull onto hard shoulder and as I lift up clutch the engine immediately restarts and is back to normal. Wondering what had just happened I continued my journey doing about 50mph in nearside lane and travel for about another mile and it happens again - this time the engine doesn't restart and I pulled onto the hard shoulder. Restarted car and all was back to normal.

I'm convinced the misfiring and this cut-out are connected.

I have replaced obvious things, HT leads have been replaced twice, coil pack, spark plugs, few other bits as well.

Fault codes been read (was nothing on there at all)

Had local independent drive and check whole car over and he found nothing. He couldn't get it to misfire but then again, he just went around town - not on motorways when it happens most. He also rung a ford garage who had never encountered that problem.


I really hope somebody can help
 
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OEM ford, so were HT leads and then yesterday I replaced HT leads again with some aftermarket, made no difference :(

Edit: The other things that were replaced for a different problem that are possibly worth mentioning are:

Coolant Temperature Sensor
Emission Sensor
Fuel Filter
 
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Check earth cables. The connection points and the cables themselves. Weird things when a system can't earth and the power goes somewhere it shouldn't (like the interior light)
 
That was checked, seems fine

When the car cut-out, it was like stalling, and if you stall in my car, the interior light comes on so I think that's possibly why it came on...
 
This gives a guide to the price of a new pump, I don't know how much labour is involved though.

The pump is located inside the fuel tank, you may be able to gain enough access by taking the rear seat out but it may also involve dropping the fuel tank.
 
I would look at all the vacuum hoses, possible air leaks form the inlet tract, exhaust gas recirculation system & the pulse air system before having anything to do with the electrical/fuel side of things (do they still have that on this model as a carry over from the older zetecs??)

The pulse air system should only work on a cold engine & overrun, if the solenoid for that is working on a hot idling engine then it's shagged. I doubt this is the problem as it tends to be a persistent problem with the engine running rough once it's warm, basically it will constantly run like a bag of spanners.

*edit* egr on duratec HE is different than i remember, your is electronically activated, never mind!.
 
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I would look at all the vacuum hoses, possible air leaks form the inlet tract, exhaust gas recirculation system & the pulse air system before having anything to do with the electrical/fuel side of things (do they still have that on this model as a carry over from the older zetecs??)

Where would I look for these hoses?

As opposed to reading error codes how about getting it on a proper diagnostics system so that sensor values can be read?

Do I need to take it to ford for this?
 
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