As today was thoroughly miserable, raining most of the day I have postponed any remedial work until tomorrow. If nothing works at least I am only 2 minutes walk from the garage. I thought that as winter approached fuel suppliers altered the diesel on offer to supposedly withstand colder temperatures.
As I said before we have had colder nights than Friday and there was no problem on starting so I am discounting the diesel itself as being the cause.

Did you get this sorted in the end? FL2 Metropolis, Loire Blue, ebony/ivory

taztastic wrote:

Steve D wrote:

What's the temperature up where you are? If cold, could it be the fuel waxing?

its GB, it's never that cold

Even happens in Australia. Have a look at the emergency procedure for cold start on page 2.

http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp-country/e...oblems.pdf Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

Right well here is the latest. I tried the suggestions given by you good folks here yesterday morning ie see if a rush of air on removing fuel cap, checking fuses well fuel pump fuse, and removing connector off filter. Did all those no rush of air, fuses okay and managed to extract diesel through filter. Would still not start so toddled off to the the garage 2 mins away. They rang up later in the day saying they too could not start it! until what was gojng to be the last attempt after they had looked under the bonnet and used a code reader, which threw up no faults, and hey bingo she started. They drove her around parked up restarted no problem. Decided to leave outside garage overnight and she started fine this morning, frost on screen so was a bit cold, so who knows. Wife now worried will reoccur again as it possibly could. Anyway am going to change the fuel filter as I happen to have one to hand and we will see.
Thanks for all the help guys.

Steve D wrote:

taztastic wrote:

Steve D wrote:

What's the temperature up where you are? If cold, could it be the fuel waxing?

its GB, it's never that cold

Even happens in Australia. Have a look at the emergency procedure for cold start on page 2.

http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp-country/e...oblems.pdf

Interesting read about adding heating oil. I have around 1500litres of kerosine at present

Well I have just changed the fuel filter. Big mistake as original problem back. Done as Haynes book suggest regarding bleeding the system. If I disconnect the front left pipe into the filter, looking looking into the bonnet, which I reckon is the supply from the tank I can manually pump diesel out of it. But if I leave disconnected and turn the engine over no diesel appears here. I am not really sure where the pump is in this setup. Is it between tank and filter or am I on a wild goosechase?

I don't think fuel is pumped up the system, rather dragged up by the HP pump. I always manually fill the filter using hoses and a tiny funnel. Some people just immerse the filter in a bucket of diesel until air stops bubbling out. I'd suggest one of these methods and then get cranking and use some e4asy start (sparingly!)

Regarding the starting and the eventual 'fix' - we have an old Clio runaround at work and every now and then it will crank over and not start. We put our code reader on it and it shows no fault codes. Even so, we 'clear' the fault codes and it fires up immediately. Don't know why but you could have the same problem maybe? Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

I used the pump on the right front outlet and got deisel out of there so assumed the filter was full

Will look out my OBD reader

Some filters come with 4 plastic 'top hat' plugs that go in the fuel lines as soon as you remove them to stop the fuel running back down or out of the system and letting air in. You've gotta be quick though and put them in as soon as you remove the pipes! Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

OBD made no difference . The filter had one cover on it red one on front right connector not sure how supposed to stop fuel, if indeed it is as same diameter of pipe removed.

Now sussed out pump is after filter so that is reason nothing out of fuel delivery pipe when cranking it. Will attempt to follow various methods recommended to get air out of system tomorrow.

Finally got her to fire up. Needed to take pipe off fuel pump and get diesel out of the pipe at that end. Just having a full filter was not enough. I find odd the pump has not enough guts to pull fuel through even though filter is full. Anyway fingers crossed.

https://www.freel2.com/forum/topic9310.htm...p;start=15

https://www.freel2.com/gallery/albums/user...eeding.pdf FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Just been having a good read of this thread http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic12990.html re dodgy fuel level readings and vehicles not starting. Am just wondering if there is any link between this problem and the one I "had", hope using past tense is correct. I must admit I have not had any problem with fuel guage reading wrong or fluctuating. What does worry me somewhat is that the garage did manage to start the car after a few failed attempts. I do know that when it would not start for me the fuel guage was reading around 3/4 full. Changing the senders seems a right performance.