cold starting

My 3.3L used to be like that until i bought a DieHard gold battery with 900 CCA. Now it starts great.

mine starts just fine. it revs to 1500 like usual except it comes down very slowly. the only thing i've noticed is that when it's cold (like 25 and below) and damp (relative humidity above 90%) there's a high pitched squeal for about 20 seconds after it turns over. i can only imagine it's the exposed part of the belt pulleys before they warm up. no cold probs so far. btw i'm running an exide orbital select battery, the 850 or 900CC version.

My idle is running about 900 as opposed to 750-800 normally... but that's the only difference I've noticed in the cold. After warming up it goes back to pretty much normal - Anyone have an idea about why that is so? Thanks.

I have both a 95 & 96 both would start hard when cold below 20 deg.
If it will not start on the first crank or during the first crank I would
push the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor and they would start right up,
just let off before the engine rpm goes above 1500.
The problem I found on both was the coolant temp. senders were bad
they were telling the computer the engine was warmer than it really was
and not putting enough fuel in to start.
The sender is right next to the thermostat housing, pointing up in the air,
you will loose only a small amount of coolant, and replace only when the
engine is cold, it only cost $12.00 at auto zone.

I've had cold starting problems with my 1994 ES 3.5L. Its seems that the fuel line freezes or something with the fuel pump. I usually end up pulling the fuel pump relay and cranking it over a couple of times before it clears the plug in the line. It has only happened a couple of times and I'm not quite sure what it is.

drop a bottle of HEET in your gas tank. That'll prevent any line freezes.

Mine had trouble starting once last winter. And it did it again just the other day. Full throttle until it started got it going, but it ran rough until the engine got a bit warmer.

If you have trouble starting your car in winter, it could be that your fuel filter is gummed up. It might work okay when it is warm, but when it gets cold out, all that gunk in the filter thinkens and makes it hard for the fuel to pass, untill you get the fuel running through it constantly. Its good to change the filter every year or so anyways. You'll get more power (not huge, of course) out of your car, and she will perk up faster when you punch it. Plus, fuel filters are fairly cheap.

Hope that helps...

Try a bottle of Marvel Mystery oil for a smoother start.

There's a anti-freeze fuel line fluid that you can pick up at most gas stations. Here in Ontario - we usually get hit with rotten winters and the fuel lines freeze overnight. I put in a bottle of the fluid into my gas tank each time I fill it up and she starts like a dream.

Doesent give me any problems at all. The RPMS start at 2 - and come down to .5 within 7-8 minutes which is how long it usually takes to get rid of the snow

There is a TSB covering 3.5L engines built before Feb. 17, 1995 that deals with no cold starts below 0 degrees. It involves using only Champion RC-12-LYC plugs gapped to .035", the use of 5W-30 oil and a reflash of the PCM to the latest software. The TSB# is 18-15-95. I had a cold start problem with my 95 LHS two yrs.ago and have had the TSB fix done. The weather in Chicago has not been
all that cold this winter so I don't know if the fix works but the car does seem to be leaner when cold but is OK when warmed up. It would flood in the cold before the change.

FredB

my 3.5 started just fine in -15F on thursday morning. granted it took quite a while to warm up and the starter didn't exactly sound happy as i was cranking it, i didn't have to engage the starter for more than 2 seconds and it fired right up with no spitting or anything. i was very happy. it was also very damp outside, relative humidity near 95%.

Try pluggin in the engine block heater if you have one, I got my car used and it came with one, I'm not sure if they all did.