There are so many nice guys on here who seem genuinely sorry about being unable to help. I appreciate all the support. I am so depressed and fed up at the moment, and after the call to the garage I am more depressed. On top of the £760 plus vat there is more to add and still no vehicle to use. Despite having this lump of useless metal, I do not have a bottomless pit of money but wherever I turn some one is trying to relieve me of what I do have. The latest is the doc who wants paying for his signature on my medical form. Because I am reaching 70 and drive 16 seater minibuses I have to have a separate form done.

The reason you are getting so much support is because we do all our own work and if something crops up we don't understand, we know who to ask. So when we see someone apparently being taken for a ride (I say apparently, as we don't know exactly what the problem is and how much knowledge the garage doing the work has), we get slightly annoyed. You are in much the same situation as the woman near Paris who's car I look after. She spent over 3 grand on her car and it still wasn't right. I called in on my way by and spotted the remaining problems immediately. It was cheaper for her to pay my expenses to drive over there a couple of weeks later and do it than it would have been to take it back to the same garage as it had been to before..

Sounds like you're having quite a time of it :(

I can't offer much help with the actual problem with the car but I would say that you don't have to pay for anything you didn't ask them to do or authorise/give permission for. They're not allowed to go ahead start throwing your money at the problem in the hope you'll pay it all later.

I work at a truck dealership and, unfortunately, we seem to manage to do quote a lot of work without getting permission from the customer. The first thing the customer does is refuse to pay for it.

If they've sourced a very expensive refurbished pump for you and you didn't ask them to do so, don't let them try to charge you for it! Unless you agree to let them fit it and it fixes the issue.

I understand the frustration with having a broken car and don't think it's impatience wanting to get alternative transport :)

If I found myself without a car for any length of time it would definitely be me nuts. My life would pretty grind to a standstill. I couldn't get to work, take my toddler to activites etc.

These cars are very nice when working well but can make you want to shoot yourself when they're not. They need a good amount of knowledge specific to them and things quickly get out of hand when you go at them without it.

Unfortunately, a lot of professional mechanics/technicians believe they know what they're doing, go in unprepared and things like this happen :(

I do kinda think that these cars only make sense for people that are willing and/or capable of working on them themselves. I think there are very few people out there with the means to have them maintained and repaired by garages with the correct knowledge!

Those that have that kind of money tend to prefer driving something newer and much more expensive!

Please don't take that as me saying people that can't work on them themselves shouldn't have them, as I'm not (at least, I'm not trying to!) - just that I can see how it can get very expensive and frustrating not doing it yourself.

Well if I had know that it had a specific model name ie. P38 I could have researched for information about it. Unfortunately I was not in possession of that nugget of information. Now I have the thing, which on the surface, is a really nice vehicle I have absolutely no idea how to go forward. Do I cut my losses and sell it, but who wants a vehicle that is not working? I have spent so much on it and the likelihood of getting anything like the amount I have spent on it back if I sold it is very remote. The present bill is going to be over a thousand and it will still not be working. Then there will be the cost for transporting it away from the garage. To where??? That is another question. Feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. In fact I think the end has been sealed up!!!!!

If you took it in to be repaired and they haven't been able to repair it, how the hell can they charge you a grand for doing sod all? Offer them a token amount for their labour charges and leave it at that. Cost of transporting it wouldn't be a lot. I'm hiring a trailer next week to deliver a motorcycle to the south of France and bring a Ford Mustang back. If I was going to be anywhere near to Portsmouth after I've dropped the Mustang off, I'd have offered to pick it up and at least get it to you, but I'm going to be pushed for time to get the trailer back to the hire place as it is. Trailer hire is £50 a day at the place I use, so all you'd need is someone with something capable of towing it.

Mazz, threaten them with the TSA. As Gilbert says, they can't charge you for what they haven't done. If they say a grand, offer them £400 for their labour.

Firstly would you guys be able to identify if fault code 1 fuel quantity adaptation, relates to the FIP or the one on the top of the tank. My local garage said it related to the FIP but Powerdrive say it did not.

Powerdrive say the pump on the tank was at fault and have replaced it. That and other time spent looking at this and that to try and find what the loss of power is being caused by, is what the £760 + vat and other amounts they are charging me for.

Hold on ........... you put your car into Powerdrive because there was a lack of power? They play with it, find a 'faulty' pump, change it but oh dear, that doesn't cure the fault? But hey ho, never mind, we're going to charge you £700 for the pleasure. Now I may be wrong here and if I am, someone will correct me. But they can't charge you for new parts if those said parts aren't the cause of your fault. Tell them to put the old pump back on!!!!
Is it a Portsmouth thing?? This reminds me of when SWMBO put her Freelander into LR, Portsmouth for a full service. They collected it (very nice of them) on a Friday. Now purely by chance and a miracle, I got home early this particular Friday. I was there when she took the call from the dealer to say the car had been serviced but there were some 'jobs' needed doing. OK, she said how much? £3,500 was the answer!!!! She gave the phone straight over to me. During the discussion, he said it needed new wiper blades at £46. I asked him was this the wiper blades I had changed the previous Saturday. His answer was, and I kid you not, "Ah, but Sir, they are not Land Rover blades"!!! At this point, I told him to just bring the car back along with a few choice words. Next morning I took the car along to my little man in the next village who went through the list of 'faults' and couldn't find one of them. The list included a missing wheel nut. (cost of replacement, £120 because they only change them in sets). We looked and looked and couldn't find a 'missing wheel nut'.

As far as I know when it comes to the Diesel vehicles.... The pump in the tank is just a lift pump to help supply fuel to the main injection pump which pressurizes it for the injectors.

The more I am reading, these guys don't actually have a clue... especially if they are charging £760 + VAT for the in - tank fuel pump swap by cutting the hole in the floor... I'd expect that sort of price (well closer to it...) if they had dropped the tank and done it properly.

But that aside for the moment - fuel quantity actuation is done inside the FIP, as your local garage have said... And as it keeps coming back to, but the garage seem to be discounting is that if the seals have been replaced and the pump timing not checked, then that will most likely give this kind of error.

Rather than type it out, I'll copy and paste a few bits from the Electrical Troubleshooting Manual for the Diesel section:

Fuel Temperature Sensor
A thermistor is also located inside the injection
pump. The fuel temperature sensor signal is used to
adjust the quantity of injected fuel, especially during
temperature extremes. The signal is also used to
back up the Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor
(X126). If this sensor fails, the ECM (Z132) uses a
substitute value of 60C and only slight effects on
fuelling may possibly be noted.

Fuel Quantity Feedback Sensor
Located within the injection pump, this sensor sends
the ECM (Z132) information regarding the actual
quantity of fuel injected. Failure of the sensor or
corrupted signals will illuminate the warning lamp
and cause the engine to stall or not start. A second
check, a plausibility check against the needle lift
sensor, also takes place.

Fuel Quantity Actuator
Once again located within the injection pump, this is
a moving magnet actuator, failure of which will cause
the engine to stall or not start as the ECM (Z132) will
activate the Fuel Shut–Off Solenoid (K111).

Injection Timing
(Solenoid Valve Injection Timing
Device (K229))
This is another actuator within the injection pump.
The ECM (Z132) receives a signal from the needle
lift sensor and attempts to correct the injection timing
accordingly. If a change does not occur, then the
ECM (Z132) assumes a fault exists, activates the
warning lamp and reduces the quantity of injected
fuel.

Fuel Shut–Off Solenoid (K111)
The Fuel Shut–Off Solenoid (K111) shuts the engine
down if the ECM (Z132) detects a major fault.
Failure of the valve itself does not activate the
warning lamp, although if a short circuit occurs, the
engine will shut down.

So all of that is done in the FIP - and reading that, if the injection timing or the fuel quantity is out, then you will most likely get power problems. OK, the in tank pump may have been faulty aswell, but the issue to me lies in the FIP, and if they haven't checked or adjusted the top of the pump since the seals were done, then as far as I'm concerned, they are wasting their time, your time, and your money chasing around other things.

OldShep. Could I just explain. The reason why I sent it to Powerdrive was because they had fixed the diesel leak as they are the only place around here that have the necessary tools to do the job. Apparently. My local garage picked up a fault which they thought was from the FIP code 1 fuel quantity adaptation. Now as the repair was still under warranty and I was told the code referred to the FIP that is why it went to Powerdrive. They say it was the code for the one under the back seat!!!

Marty. That information you sent makes some sense. I took it to the garage because, one evening it kept stalling. Both when putting it in gear and coming to a stop. Also I had difficulty with the starting. When I took it to the garage it did none of those things. So back home it came. Then the next week the battery went flat for no reason. Got it jumped and took it for a 30 mins run to charge it up. The power thing started to show itself that night. Got the local garage to check for problems and that is when they found the fault they thought referred to the FIP. The battery has not gone flat since!

I wish I had someone to talk to them that actually knows whats what and could maybe question more, what they are doing. I don't think that they are messing about but cannot be 100% sure. Whatever happens this bill will be £1000+ The reason why they did the pump via the back seat was because that is how Turner Diagnostics did it. Another load of rip merchants. P38 experts??????? Think I now know more than them!!!!!

Oh and there were no warning lights on the dash when it stalled

Oh and there were no warning lights on the dash when it stalled

Forgot. They have also replaced 2 glow plugs

Now I don't know that much about diesels but it's my understanding that the glow plugs are needed for a cold start in cold weather. If two have failed then there's still 4 more to get it to start and, if my bosses diesel Discovery is anything to go by, you don't actually neded them in the summer.

No maybe not but they would have needed doing at some point. Obviously nothing to do with the loss of power issue. Wish I could find out for definite which pump that code relates to. IF my local garage was correct in saying it was the FIP then I would be asking why Powerdrive took no notice and also why they replaced the tank one. I would not have sent it back to Powerdrive if I had known it was the tank one as the local garage could have done it.

The pump in the tank is purely there to get fuel from the tank to the engine. Even if it wasn't working, it wouldn't generate a fault code and certainly wouldn't affect the fuel quantity adaptation.

Pretty soon setting up old-skool mechanical diesel pumps will be a lost art... Not that garages seem to be very competent at diagnosing/solving problems with common rail systems either. My brother in law runs a diesel Golf but only usually uses the car for short trips, he's already had the turbo replaced (never ran as good as before, down on a bit of power and still smoked more than it should), now it's smoking like hell again and none of the garages he's been to can say for sure what the problem is. He took the EGR valve off himself (I was busy converting a car but he kept pestering me for direction lol), chock full of soot and stuck, cleaned it out, put it back on, improved but still smoky and lacking power. For the mileage he does he'd have been better off with a petrol Golf GTI and not even bother getting it LPG converted. After all the problems he's suffered and other potential problems he knows are likely with diesels (DPF, DMF, EGR, turbo, injectors) he's finally coming to the same conclusion.