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Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:11 pm
by markyp130
Hello,
I have a 2.1td fitted with a lucas epic Hp fuel pump which is running fine.(That cursed it). But have been reading that this type a pump can be troublesum and fail, Is there anything i can do to help this pump last in the way of maintenance or checks and how long do these pumps generally run for without problems.
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:10 pm
by steve_earwig
Er no, they fail just like any other pump, or go on forever... just try not to run it on anything other than diesel.
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:47 pm
by markyp130
Hello steve,
That has put my mind at rest, its just you read all the problems on the forum and sometimes convince yourself that your car must be suffering from all of them.
The car still turns over slow but fires quickly, so i will order a new starter as they are not to costly.
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:51 pm
by marty1979
My 2.1 has done just over 196,000 miles and drives extremely well indeed. It was suffering from a small problem that I traced down to a split leak off pipe on an injector, a new piece of pipe sorted that out. I did some quite exstensive research on these pumps and they appear to be fairly reliable, but when they do go wrong they are quite often wrongly diagnosed and binned. As mentioned above, stay away from veg as these don't do well on that stuff, infact I think you'll be lucky to find any Lucas pump that lasts long on veg. My dad has a VW Bora 1.9 TDI, and there's not much difference between the two in terms of noise and smoothness, and being his is only 6 years old and mine is 13 years old that's not bad going.
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:58 pm
by markyp130
Thanks marty,
My 2.1 has done 135500 miles so just run in

.and i have checked around the fuel lines and all look dry and in good condition.
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 5:10 pm
by Welly
I once ran a (horribly abused) 605 STDT 2.1td and the fuel pump started to crap out and leak...............the mileage was in excess of 260,000
I wouldn't even think about it if I was you but even if you did have a problem you could pick up another whole engine now for not much money and rob whatever you need off that.
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 5:57 pm
by Doggy
But didn't the 605 have a bosch pump, like the XM?
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 6:37 pm
by Captain Jack
Never had a problem with mine - was on 145k before I sold it on.
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:13 pm
by Gary406
its the same as any other pump really, it will go when it goes wether its lucas or bosch
treat it well and it will probably not let you down
you never hear on hereabout the lucas pumps going much
Re: Lucas epic and should i worry?
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:31 pm
by markyp130
Thanks for that.
I will just put decent diesel through it and all should be ok. I am keeping an eye out for a cheap 1.9 bosch pump just incase diesel gets stupidly expensive and i have it run on veg oil.