Hello all,

Just posting this in case it's of use to others searching. My son's 1997 polo 1.6 started cutting out after a few miles. After leaving for a few minutes it would restart but then cut out again after a few miles, and so on. This is how I found the problem:

- I left it idling until it cut out. Normally when you switch the ignition on you hear the fuel pump (under the back seat on the right) buzz for a few seconds. It wasn't.

- Next step was to check out the relay. On this car it's below and to the right of the steering wheel behind the driver's little glove box. You need to remove the two torx screws holding the fuse holder in place and move it out of the way. The relays behind it are visible and the fuel pump relay is number 167, second from the right.

- If you remove the relay you can prise off the plastic cover with a thin bladed knife , carfully re-insert it and watch the relay operate (or not). After 10 mins idling the relay de-activated and would not re-engage until left for a while. Closing the relay with something non-conductive (a plastic chopstick in this case) while attempting to start caused the engine to fire up.

- It was now a case of a faulty relay (that seemed to be heat sensitive, losing power when it warmed up) or lack of trigger from the ECU. I found that the trigger is switched on the negative side - i.e. there's always 12V on the input to the relay, and that when I put a meter between the two smaller sockets it read 12V, then dropped (as the switch on the -ve side closed) and went up to 12V again (as it switched off after a few seconds). So this seemed to be OK.

- I picked up a relay for a couple of quid from a breaker (handy as there's one a couple of miles away). This cured the problem and the car is now fine.

Hope this helps anyone having the same symptoms. If it's not the relay the reading of other posts I've done points to the sensor on the side of the distributor.

Cheers Keith