Puma 1.7 "bunny-hopping"?

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Wed 2 Oct 2002 16:02
Puma 1.7 "bunny-hopping"? - Ant
Hi All,

I've recently aquired a 55k Puma 1.7VCT for my wife. It's a 1998 vintage and seems fine. About 4 weeks ago it had a Ford Dealer Full 60,000 service and seemed OK. Did about 250 miles at the weekend, and still fine. My wife filled it up at Safeway on Tuesday, and now reports the car "bunny-hops" (her words) sometimes when setting off (eg from a roundabout) or if cruising (eg, 30mph in fourth gear). Putting you foot down makes it go away, or dipping the clutch and revving the engine. Doesn't seem to happen under acceleration and when I drove it last night I could not replicate the problem. She says it's still doing it today.

So, I don't think it's the clutch (I set off on a hill in second with no slipping) I don't think it's the engine because it accelerates fine. I'm I looking at bad batch of unleaded? What do you think?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

cheers


Anthony
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Wed 2 Oct 2002 16:12
Puma 1.7 - Ian (Cape Town)
"safeways" and "bad batch of unleaded" are the keys here, ant.
If you do a search for 'supermarket petrol', you'll get more info.

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Wed 2 Oct 2002 16:19
Puma 1.7 - Ant
Thanks Ian. Thought as much, hence including those details in the original post!

We've only had the car a couple of months, and my wife is still at the paranoid stage of thinking there must be something wrong with the car!

BTW I think it's a corking little car to drive - high grin factor

cheers

Anthony
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Thu 3 Oct 2002 06:23
Puma 1.7 - Ian (Cape Town)
One of our local supermarkets is trying to get into the cut-price petrol game. (at present petrol is govt price-controlled).
If/when they succeed, I expect to see a host of similar problems here.

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Thu 3 Oct 2002 08:47
Puma 1.7 - tsr
It could also be the exhaust oxygen sensor (lambda probe) Puma's are know to get through these quite regularly and kangarooing is the most used way of describing the problem.
See the forum on www.pumapeople.com for more details.

Tim
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Sun 6 Oct 2002 08:32
Puma 1.7 - Ant
Hi All

Just to close out on this one.

We have now run down that tank of supermarket unleaded and I filled up on Friday with Shell Optimax Super Unleaded. Towards the back end of last week the symptoms seemed to disappear and the car started behaving normally again. Used up the Shell yesterday on a long run (200 miles) again without a reoccurance.

So it looks like there was some contaminant in the supermarket fuel that was towards the bottom of the tank that got used up first? Anyhow, this car's only going to live on a diet of branded fuel from now on...

Thanks to those who contributed.

cheers

Anthony
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