Low temperature woes!

[treehorndogsbody]

Advice please. My 97 960 CD estate 77k has baffeled the local garage. If the temperature drops below 3 degrees C., the beast just refuses to start. Leave it until it warms up, by only a couple of degrees, and it starts as it always has on second attempt. All usual suspect have been substituted for bits off my other cars,fuel relay, coil packs, plugs, fuel filter, and injection relay. Your thoughts please.

[Toplights]

Is it only the one car that stars 2nd attempt THDB,or do the others do it as well?, both mine start 1st attempt.just thinking it may have one weak coil pack.

[StanC]

Originally Posted by treehorndogsbody

. . . . . . and it starts as it always has on second attempt. . . . . Your thoughts please.

If it's always started only on the second attempt then there's been something wrong for a long time. My '96 960 CD saloon has always fired up on the very first spin of the starter.

Does the car run ok once it has started? Have you had it read for fault codes?

It sounds as thought you've had a fault for a while, which is slowly deteriorating and has now reached the stage of manifesting itself at lower temperatures. It could be that you have too weak a mixture at start-up - at the second go at starting there's already a bit of unburnt fuel in the cylinders from the first start attempt, sufficient just to get it going. This would also explain why it's worse at lower temperatures. Which suggests possibly a failing temperature sensor somewhere signalling too weak a mixture for starting. Or, have you had the injectors checked?

Sorry I can't be more specific without more info.

Stan.

[BigBas]

I think what Alan meant was that on the second try, once the temperature has come up a bit, it starts perfectly (first time)