The owner of this 2004 VW Lupo 1.7 diesel, was perfectly capable of carrying out day to day servicing. This meant I didn’t get to see it too often. When there was a problem, he would also come to me. The owner had now asked me to try and solve the poor starting issue he was having.

The problem with the starting had got progressively worse over the past two weeks, and he admitted, this had only started being a problem after he had carried out the annual service. He had fitted a new fuel filter, which had bled out easily, and the engine had fired up after the replacement without issue.

My first concern was that even after two weeks, there still appeared to be a light film of diesel around the top of the fuel filter. This would normally have been dispersed over that time, so I started by cleaning this thoroughly and then checking to see if there was any reappearance of the diesel.

After a short drive, I could see that the lightest film of diesel had indeed reappeared. I was pretty sure that if diesel was creeping out, air could just as easily be creeping in. The seals for the filter are available, but I thought changing the small T piece would be a better option. This is often supplied with the fuel filter, but hadn’t been with this one.

With the new T piece fitted, and the top of the filter cleaned again, the Lupo was given another run. This time the filter stayed dry, so the chances of the poor starting being cured were good.

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