Hi

I just wanted to get a bit of advice with my car (Kia Rio Diesel, 2009, roughly 100,000 miles). A few weeks ago we took it to a garage after we noticed a small fuel leak when it was parked on a slope (had been driving fine otherwise). The garage had a look and there was a crack in the tank with a bit of corrosion – they replaced the tank and hose assembly. It drove fine initially but then after roughly 50 miles then engine warning light came on and it limited itself.

We returned to the garage who tested it which showed that the car had picked up a spike in fuel pressure but it was fine now so they reset it and sent us on our way. The problem happened again at which point they referred us onto a specialist diagnostics mechanic. He found a similar fault and reset it. Subsequently the car has times when it was ok and times when it would be limited without the light being on – we were trying to find a pattern to this.

The car then started struggling to start (taking 10 seconds and then longer) and when it did start it was not limited but would chuck out smoke and not accelerate when you tried to. We returned to both garages.

The outcome from the diagnostics mechanic was:

- Fuel pressure too high and fuel pressure regulation faults recorded

- Injector No. 4 found to have excessive “leak off” on second test (He thought this was due to underlying high pressure)

- Fuel pressure too high fault also recorded on second test

Having returned to the original garage that did the fuel tank they agreed with the faults but claimed there was no way it could be to do with the tank and assembly change. They suggested that we could fix the injector and change the fuel pressure regulator but said that may not even fix the problem. They also said that high pressure could have broken the tank in the first place. So far I have told them not to do anything.

I am not a mechanic so I don’t know if it could have been caused by them or if high pressure could have broken a tank before anything else or if it really is a coincidence that this all happened now so would like some advice. Is hard to shake the feeling that I am being ripped off.

Thank you

John