Please excuse the car question, but no resps in uk.recs.car.maintenance

If it is a diesel, there could be on the fuel supply.

Baz

Which reminds me back in the dim and distant past I bought a car that had both worn carburettor jets and a high mounted petrol tank. One day when not in use the sump filled up with petrol. It turned out that the car had escaped a service recall to retro fit a solenoid operated petrol line tap, bizarrely it appeared, because the car had not been registered until six months or more after it was manufactured which covered the period in which the potential fault was discovered.

You've not been keeping up. Variations on this have been in use for a long time - although mainly on upmarket cars. But not using relays. Electronic switching.

Solenoids wouldn't be fast enough. Valve *timing* is altered by a mixture of solenoid valves and oil pressure on some cars, though.

Electric water pumps exist. I'd not fancy an electric oil pump. The mechanical type rarely fail.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

Electrical pre-start priming pumps are commonplace in some areas.