Hey guys i'm having some trouble with my car as of yesterday. I went to fill up yesterday as i was running on dry and put in 51 liters as i usually do, i then drove around to some places and as i started accelerating in 5th gear at around 2,000rpm on the highway on-ramp, my car started to jerk as if the engine was choking and wasn't getting the proper gas and air mixture. Today on the highway, the same kind of jerking happened, but this time, it happened in 2nd, 3rd,4th, and 5th gear, mostly in 3rd and 4th. In 3rd gear i even got the jerking motion around 3,000, 3,500 rpm. I am very puzzeled by this because at low rpms i can kind of see the jerking motion happening, but in a low gear at high rpms i really couldn't understand why. Any thoughts?

 

Do you typically run your tank "dry"? If you do then there's a pretty good chance you've fried your fuel pump.

 

Since i got my car ive filled up about 50 liters and this has been about 6 fill ups so I would assume that's dry, but before I got my car, my brother would usually let it run dry, and then fill up about 1/4 of a tank, and he never had a problem with the jerking mortion.

 

With modern EFI cars like the Protege's, the fuel pump usually lives in the fuel tank and uses the surrounding fuel as a coolant. If allowed to run dry too many times, you may have indeed damaged the pump and need a new one. But it's also possible that:
1) You have stirred up dirt from the bottom of the fuel tank and clogged the pre-pump filter sock. Or,
2) gotten a bad load of fuel, or pumped dirt from the station's tanks into yours.

Either way, from the situation you are describing, it sounds like it's time to drop the tank and have a look-see.

 

I could understand the fuel pump being damaged but I doubt it because the symptoms started occurring 30-min after i filed up, so a bad load of fuel, or dirt, sounds a bit more plausible but yea i'll have to take the tank down and see. Thanks for the help.

 

you can go to any parts store buy a fuel pressure gauge it hooks up just before your fuel rail on your motor and check to see if your getting the correct presure if you are oviously its not the pump. i supose you don't have a check engine light on right? does this only happen when your going on the highway? on regular roads does this also happen? if only on the highway i would have to say the pump is damaged to the point it can't keep up demand for the motor while running 3000rpm + but the only way to test to make sure it is not working is the fuel pressure gauge.

 

I can tell you right now that it's not the pump because yesterday I got very little jerking motion. The only time that I got jerking motion past 3,000 rpm was the next day after I filled up as i mentioned earlier. Yesterday, the only time it happened was if i was at low rpms and i pressed the accelerater all the way down. The jerking was very minor though. If the fuel pump was fried, I doubt the car would run after a while, it just doesn't make any sense.

 

Then, as I suggested earlier, it may be dirt in the tank being pulled into the filter sock at the intake/suction tube of the pump. Once the car sits for a time, some of the dirt falls to the bottom of the tank again... but I wouldn't count on it staying that way w/o some intervention.

 

Yea makes sense, in any case I drive the car around 70km a day so the chance of it sitting for a while is slim. I will check the fuel pressure and take down the fuel tank to see what is going on. Thanks for the feedback.

 

I am surprised no one discusses the possibilities of an intermittent electrical short or contact or a vacuum leak somewhere.
The electrical issues could be in any circuit regarding fuel supply, ignition, throttle position sensor, any of the temperature sensors, MAF sensor circuit. The circuits include the wiring to and from...