I was just backing into my driveway (significant slope down toward the house so the nose of the car is upwards) and the engine stumbled, ran very badly for a few seconds, then died. Would not start immediately. Left it for a few minutes and it started up fine (as usual).
Funny thing is -- during the winter I noticed that my (slightly) newer car (1994 Turbo) also would go through no-start phases when I parked it in the driveway on the slope with nose upwards.

Possible relevant information:
a) yesterday I replaced the fuel filter on the 1992 car (after several leaks due to my inexperience with banjo bolts / fuel pump gasketing -- which I think I sorted out after a call to IPD)
b) the 1994 car had a noisy fuel pump over the winter and the in-tank pump has just been replaced.

Any comments? I have done some searches and have not found any mention of slopes inducing no/difficult starts. Perhaps a slope might put extra pressure on the fuel delivery system and expose a weakening fuel pump, for example?

Thanks,


Rob