VERY hard starting when cold - smoke & dies..
10-21-2006, 07:09 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Carbondale, IL.
Posts: 184
VERY hard starting when cold - smoke & dies..
97 Max GLE, 105k. Well maintained.
It is going in within a few weeks for a new waterpump, the fins have eroded and the gauge (in hotter weather) will creep up somewhat from the normal position, only to drop after speeding up (over 35 or so). No problems with head gasket, oil and coolant are fine.
Anyway, the other day at a stoplight the car just stopped. No SES, started right back up.
Now yesterday morning and this morning(cold starts), hit the key to crank, fires, runs about 2 seconds and dies, large cloud of grayish/blue smoke drifts by. This goes on for 3 more tries until I pressed the gas pedal when cranking, it fired, ran slightly rough for a few moments and after the smoke cleared out it was fine. On the road it runs great, gas mileage, plenty of power.
Where to even start with this, guys? I've got the worst damned headache after searching this board for 2 hours and reading posts.. More confused than ever..
It is going in within a few weeks for a new waterpump, the fins have eroded and the gauge (in hotter weather) will creep up somewhat from the normal position, only to drop after speeding up (over 35 or so). No problems with head gasket, oil and coolant are fine.
Anyway, the other day at a stoplight the car just stopped. No SES, started right back up.
Now yesterday morning and this morning(cold starts), hit the key to crank, fires, runs about 2 seconds and dies, large cloud of grayish/blue smoke drifts by. This goes on for 3 more tries until I pressed the gas pedal when cranking, it fired, ran slightly rough for a few moments and after the smoke cleared out it was fine. On the road it runs great, gas mileage, plenty of power.
Where to even start with this, guys? I've got the worst damned headache after searching this board for 2 hours and reading posts.. More confused than ever..
10-21-2006, 09:02 PM
#2
thats weird cause we both seem to be having kinda the same problem only mine isnt quite as serious. i havent had the car die on me yet but it does tend to rough idle. When i go to crank it it hard starts and kinda sounds like its dragging to turn over. give it some gas and it'll crank, run rough, and blow smoke. not like an insane amount but its there. so id like to know what anyone on the org has to say about this as well. mine has 120k.
10-22-2006, 06:15 AM
#5
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Join Date: Jun 2001
Posts: 16,033
Originally Posted by Hellspawn
97 Max GLE, 105k. Well maintained.
It is going in within a few weeks for a new waterpump, the fins have eroded and the gauge (in hotter weather) will creep up somewhat from the normal position, only to drop after speeding up (over 35 or so).
It is going in within a few weeks for a new waterpump, the fins have eroded and the gauge (in hotter weather) will creep up somewhat from the normal position, only to drop after speeding up (over 35 or so).
Originally Posted by Hellspawn
Now yesterday morning and this morning(cold starts), hit the key to crank, fires, runs about 2 seconds and dies, large cloud of grayish/blue smoke drifts by. This goes on for 3 more tries until I pressed the gas pedal when cranking, it fired, ran slightly rough for a few moments and after the smoke cleared out it was fine. On the road it runs great, gas mileage, plenty of power...
Clean the throttle body as well to help with cold starts.
10-22-2006, 07:39 AM
#7
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Carbondale, IL.
Posts: 184
Ok, Since we also have a 97 SE, the ECTS has been swapped with a known good one, same thing happens. I've swapped out the original thermostat with a stant fail-safe I think it was, no difference. I've flushed the cooling system, coolant looked clean, correct level and all. Fans, one fan under normal situations, sitting at a stoplight or idling you will get both fans. A/C button always results in 2 fans going. Plenty of heat from the vents if we select heat.
Just for reference, last Summer when it was about 95f or so, the temp gauge would rise towards the first white line below the warning line. It would never get to that first line however. This was if the car was idling(both fans), or if we were in slow traffic. When the temp gauge does rise a bit above where it is supposed to be (compared to the SE), on acceleration sometimes I will hear some pinging until the temp gauge comes back down. Where the SE runs the gauge just slightly below the middle, the GLE runs it dead in the middle as a minimum when warmed up.
The fins on the water pump, that is my semi-educated guess. The reason is that when the coolant as flushed at 65k, I think the stuff used was not silicate-free. My reasoning for this is that one side of the thermostat was coated with a very crusty crystal-looking material. Almost looked like a really heavy yellowish frost. The radiator looks ok from what I can see. I've presumed that the material on the thermostat was a silicate deposit and it's most likely eroded the fins.
Does it sound like this could be a possibility? The antifreeze used was the Supertech stuff from Walmart about 3 years ago.
I will be cleaning the TB on both cars later today.
I have had the idea of a leaking fuel injector mentioned to me, any thoughts on that?
Just for reference, last Summer when it was about 95f or so, the temp gauge would rise towards the first white line below the warning line. It would never get to that first line however. This was if the car was idling(both fans), or if we were in slow traffic. When the temp gauge does rise a bit above where it is supposed to be (compared to the SE), on acceleration sometimes I will hear some pinging until the temp gauge comes back down. Where the SE runs the gauge just slightly below the middle, the GLE runs it dead in the middle as a minimum when warmed up.
The fins on the water pump, that is my semi-educated guess. The reason is that when the coolant as flushed at 65k, I think the stuff used was not silicate-free. My reasoning for this is that one side of the thermostat was coated with a very crusty crystal-looking material. Almost looked like a really heavy yellowish frost. The radiator looks ok from what I can see. I've presumed that the material on the thermostat was a silicate deposit and it's most likely eroded the fins.
Does it sound like this could be a possibility? The antifreeze used was the Supertech stuff from Walmart about 3 years ago.
I will be cleaning the TB on both cars later today.
I have had the idea of a leaking fuel injector mentioned to me, any thoughts on that?
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