Thanks for taking the time to respond further.
Your point about the charge for the computer readout is well made but I
have
an almost pathological hatred of being, or feeling like I am being ripped
off. The readers are upwards of £4K to buy. 15 cars a week on the machine
at
£75 each equals over £1K per week - 4 weeks and the machine is paid for,
10
weeks if it costs £10K etc. I know the maths is not as simple as this and
I
know that not all garages charge in this way but this Garage would not
even
guarantee that the computer reader would tell me what was wrong - ergo,
potentially £75.00 down the tubes for no certain result. What they are
probably angling for is for me to leave the car with them, probably to the
tune of £300+ including the computer test - sorry to rant but it is
irritating - bring back the A series, I could figure than one out with a
big
hammer!!!
To the fault.
I have not had this car a year yet and it has been very good. This problem
only occurs in very cold weather and apart from one occasion late last
year
only in the mornings. In order to get to work I put the fan heater under
the
bonnet and turn it on when I get up. The 3 S's, get dressed, turn of the
fan
heater and start the car - bingo every time.
So far, apart from one or two occasions when very very cold it always
start
in the evening on the way home.
On those occasions I tried the old trick, turn over for 10s, wait for 60s,
turn for 10s wait for 60s, repeat a number of times and the engine starts.
The waiting is to give the battery time to recover (slightly) and to allow
heat generated in the attempted start to dissipate into the block. The
process is supposed to warm the head enough to get the engine to fire.
Back to the problem.
The starting in the morning only gets tested on Saturday and Sunday - all
other times I need it to be reliable so use the fan heater. I replaced the
glow plug control module on Saturday and it started ok afterwards
This morning I when down at 9:00 and it would not start (sob sob as was
expecting it to) 1/2 hour with the heater and off she goes. I did not
drive
it and left it running for only about 5 minutes while I looked around
under
the bonnet for inspiration. I have left it all day since about 09:30 till
a
few minutes ago, went back out and tried to start it and it starts first
time. The block must have cooled by now and yet it starts OK - although
the
ambient temp is again around 12 degrees C.
I have found an air temperature sensor (in the same module as an air flow
sensor) in the air intake line and I wonder if this is re****ting wrong. It
measures around 3.8K at 12 degrees C and if I warm it between my fingers
this reduces to 1.8K. I have no way of telling what these values should be
but this could be the cause of my problem?? - looks expensive though.
To answer your question, no problems with starting other than when very
cold. No progressive starting difficulties. It seems that it is most
likely
to not start when left standing overnight and when very cold.
Thanks for your help so far
Andrew
Thus the only time
":Jerry:" <INVALID@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:se-dnbo7icEOkSXanZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "Andrew Hall" <andrew.hall2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:bBTtj.2092$St5.615@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> <snip>
> >
> > I could solve a lot of this by having the car on the Citroen dealers
> > computer - this might tell me what the problem is but not at 75 quid
> > at time
> > plus VAT - Talk about a rip off.
> >
> > Any further suggestions gratefully received
> >
>
> Well, I'm sorry that the 'obvious' failed to cure the problem, I'm now
> starting (no pun intended!...) to wonder if your description of the
> fault is a symptom rather than the cause and that warming the ambient
> engine bay temperature is just coincidental IYSWIM, are there any
> other symptoms past or present - for example does the engine get
> increasingly difficult or longer to start after being left for some
> time even though the engine block and or ambient temperature is still
> reasonable? The other thing to point out regarding the cost of having
> the vehicle put on the dealers computer, OK £75 + VAT is a lot but you
> could end up spending more than that 'guessing' at what part(s) to
> replace next, sometimes it's actually cheaper in the long run to gulp
> hard and pay up - a bit like insurance in fact...
>
>
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