Stalling at start up
 

Hey all -

So, I've got this thing. I start the car up in the cold, read below 30 degrees farenheit, and the car will start up fine, idle fine, but when I go to get going, it just dies no matter how I let the clutch out (I've been driving stick for twenty years; this isn't a driving issue). So, to combat this stalling thing, I've been starting the car up and before trying to engage a gear, I've been revving it to about 4 grand where it gets a little choppy then let it drop back and engage the gear, and it will go without stalling. However, then it will miss every now and then on a combustion cycle until warm. Once warmed up, the car runs great and just like it always did, but this stalling thing is a new thing.


I've just had four new plugs and a new air cleaner put into the car at the 35,000 mile dealer service. Oil is always clean, and I put some injector cleaner in the tank to see if that would help. It didn't.

The only three things that I could think that it might be was an oil fouled MAF sensor since the kid at the dealership has taken it upon himself to overfill my crank case by two quarts on the last two oil changes. (He thinks that he is doing me a favor so I won't have to check the oil). Maybe a leaking injector? And The other thing is cold start enrichment, but I don't know.

There are no CELS set and there never have been. The car has never been flooded.

Any ideas? And thanks for your time.

Haze:

I wish I could offer a reasonable answer. My engine isn't stalling but it goes through a weird period of crappy running (as though on one rotor or something) about two minutes after starting unless I drive it right away.

Maybe they're both different manifestations of the same issue? I suppose the service manual has some flowchart of the operations of the various systems as the car warms up; I'll have to take a look. (I've got a bit over 30,000 miles and haven't changed the plugs yet)

Thanks for the reply. It is appreciated. It sounds to me in your case the plugs are becoming fouled. It is amazing how rich this engine runs at idle, but I would try changing your plugs. My car ran like garbage before I changed my plugs. I have also thought that maybe the ports have become fouled from running the plugs too long in my car, although they were changed per schedule. I don't know. I too have the manual, but I haven't found it very helpful for diagnosis help, which makes sense I guess since it is a new engine family. Thanks for checking for me. Again, all help is appreciated.

the list of possibilities in the service manual is so long you're only effective option is to take it to the dealer, the chances of you guessing it are slim

Haze:

Thanks for the advice on the sparkplugs. As I understand it, the replacement plugs are a little different than the originals and resist fouling better. I suppose in my case after the air injection pump stops, the engine is running very rich for a period to get the catalysts burning well, and the old plugs can't keep up; maybe that's when the missing/rough running spell happens. (I will be replacing them when our cold and salty season is over)

I looked through the .pdf manual (posted in this forum some time ago) last night. I don't have the official paper copy of the shop manual so maybe the pdf version isn't as thorough, but it does have a "Engine Troubleshooting" section. EngineProblem.pdf) Is this what you've been looking at?

Having said that: wow! If you follow the diagnostic procedures (No. 5 ENGINE STALLS - AFTER START/AT IDLE or No.8 ENGINE RUNS ROUGH/ROLLING IDLE) it looks like you will have nearly taken your engine completely apart and put it back together again to track the problem down, not to mention using diagnostic tools only the dealer has. Pretty much what TeamRX8 said!

I was hoping just to find a diagram sort of thing showing step by step how the sensors and systems interacted from start to normal operating temperature.

This is sort of why I find the manual's diagnostic section useless. Usually, manuals can point you a little better to those things which might actually be bad, not just everything, but this is a new engine family and nobody really knows what its particular weaknesses are I guess. Well, I will be digging into when the warmth comes as well. I already took it to the dealer and they just shook their heads and basically said that they couldn't do anything until it threw a code, which I'm not sure that it will ever do. It's things like this that keep life interesting. Thanks to all for the responses. - H