Flooded engine!

[essayer]

GF's Lupo started, ran really rough for 10 seconds then stalled and just wouldn't restart.

So call the RAC, guy cranks it for about 2 minutes, started 'catching' and suddenly started up fine. (in a massive cloud of white smoke)

He reckoned it had got flooded somehow.. something about no compression and bore wash. Starts up fine now. Done so quick the RAC guy didn't even bother with the paperwork

I didn't think in the days of fuel injection engines could get "flooded". I know it has had an intermittently faulty coolant sensor (sometimes reads cold when it's not) so perhaps - combined with quite a few short trips lately - it has had a long period of overfuelling? Seem possible?

[essayer]

It's a 2003 plate 1.4 16v.

Will have to keep an eye on it.. and keep those jump leads handy in case another 2 min cranking is required!

[essayer]

Cheers all, I have ordered a new coolant temp sensor from VW and will fit it at the weekend.

There were two faults logged on the memory but I didn't get a chance to memorise them, I think one was about a lambda sensor, the other was about the coolant temperature being over or under voltage.

Lambda I'm not sure on, could this have been triggered by the rough start/flooding?

I will swap the coolant sensor, as this definitely reads zero from time to time, and if we get the check engine light again perhaps the lambda sensor is faulty?

[essayer]

Ouch, hope not. Makes sense, although maybe the white smoke was water vapour, it was late evening when Mr RAC showed up.

I'll check the coolant tonight, as far as I remember it's never used a drop. But it is a bit mystifying how it worked fine since forever and one day randomly just wouldn't start..