My niece has one of these cars and, a couple of years ago, it was exhibiting the sort of symptoms you describe. The problem turned out to be faulty seals on the engine injectors which, as I've since read, is a very common problem with this engine. Cost several hundred pounds to have it fixed, including four (second-hand) injectors.

You really need to have this fault accurately diagnosed by someone who really knows what they're doing with this diesel engine or you could end up paying out thousands if you start changing things like ECUs and it doesn't solve the problem.

Are the injectors noisy? My 1.4Tdci has suffered with engine dying for a few seconds then coming back up when my injectors last needed re-seating, and the injectors were noisy. Mine have been re-seated twice in 180,000 miles. Take yours to a local diesel specialist. In fact, many general service garages will turn you away for this job as special hydraulic pullers and seat cutters are often required.

As for the engine management light, surely, even if the light has gone out again, the fault code would be stored. Even my cheap Sealey VS8700 code reader can read (and delete) stored fault codes, though the only codes that have ever come up are the two connected with the EGR valve performance.

Edited by MrEckerslikefromRamsbottom on 16/04/2015 at 17:01