Assuming the car is driven either daily or every few days and has a new battery, how many seconds should it take to start up (cold)? Turn the key, crank crank crank-- startup. It seems my 2010 C4S is taking a lot longer than it used to. 80K miles, new plugs installed 2 years ago, driven 8K mile/yr. Fuel additives used occasionally. My cranks fast (new battery), but it takes a good 5 seconds to start. It used to take maybe 2 seconds, even cold. When it's HOT, it does crank much faster. Cold starts have slowed way down. Is this a plug issue, fuel pump issue, injector issue? It runs fine, acceleration is good, idles perfectly ( new TB). I clean the TB and MAF annually. This is a nuisance but would like to solve it. Thanks.

 

My 07S takes about 2 seconds to start from initial crank cold or hot start. Newish AGM battery (installed this year). 5 seconds seems a bit slow. Don’t know what could be causing your issue though.

 

Original starter? Changed mine put and made a world of difference. Takes maybe an hour to do.

Cw

 

Yes- I have the original starter. OK. Like that idea. Will look into swapping out.

 

I came across this on YouTube. The slow cranking could possibly be a faulty cable.

 

That's a great video- agree it's probably an aging starter/cable. I also found a YouTube video on how to change all of that. It was so detailed and tool/technique specific I realized it would be a job I would have to take it in for. I can get as far as throttle body, but getting in behind the plenum and into the true engine guts is past my stop point. Thanks for the help!

 

Didn't watch the video, but if you're checking cables, check the distribution posy cable at the front too.

 

2009 C2S 177K miles

My startup is pretty much instantaneous. Less than 1 second. Everyonce in a while I will get a full crank but it is rare.

That video reflects an issue with .1 cars and is not an issue with .2 cars.

Try an Italian tuneup.... get the car up to full temperature, then put in a gear that gets you real high revs and drive like that for a while... cycling up and down but holding at high revs. Italian tune ups are controversial, but they work IMO, if you have been only doing short trips and not driving aggressively.

Peace
Bruce in Philly (now Atlanta)

 

Spoken like someone else who owned a '74 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000. Best way to clean the plugs and carbs.

 

If it's cranking fine but taking long to start, it sounds to me like you're losing fuel pressure when it's parked and it's taking time for the fuel pressure to get back to the motor. I don't know where the check valves in the DFI fuel system are - sometimes it's built into the low pressure pump, sometimes there's an inline check valve that prevents backflow, etc.

 

Perhaps ridiculous, but please consider that the MAF is very sensitive and cleaning it is a heavy burden. I would simply change the MAF first on a trial basis. Cheap.

 

Follow up to my original post- the issue was a failing high pressure fuel pump. The pressure that pump exerts is about 1700 psi (basically a fuel injector), and apparently it was bleeding pressure when the car was shut down. If driven for running errands, the restarts were normal because the HP pump still had pressure. Overnight, and 6 seconds of cranking was needed to get the pressure back up to spec. Now that it's been replaced, it starts in 1-2 seconds all the time. That was it. For the heck of it, I had them also replace the gear shifting transmission oil (standard 6 speed), because I was having trouble finding 1st gear. It would fight me all the time. Replacing the original oil (circa 2010 and 85K miles) made a large difference. 1st gear is now very easy to re-engage. Much cheaper than transmission work....

 

2009 C2S 178K miles

Thanx for the report. After just replacing my high pressure fuel pump, my car just runs better and I don't know why. I didn't notice it wasn't, but it is just better now. For me, I got the dash light and "reduced power" warning.

Peace
Bruce in Philly (now Atlanta)

 

My 05 is about 2-3 cranks and start, so maybe 3 seconds or so

 

My issue came on slow. I recall thinking it was a bad battery a year ago, and replaced it. But it wasn't the battery. Another artifact of the problem is that when I started driving off cold the car lurched ever so slightly. Just a gentle rocking as it started picking up speed. The HP fuel pump perhaps wasn't delivering the rate it needed. Like Bruce in Philly said, it runs 'better' following. The lurch on mine started years ago. Seems to be diminished now. So thumbs up to replacing the HP fuel pump.