Car has trouble cold starting

Tiny
KHIDREAL
  • MEMBER
  • 1998 PEUGEOT 306
  • 1.8L
  • 4 CYL
  • 2WD
  • MANUAL
  • 150,000 MILES
So my car has trouble cold starting. I mean, it has trouble cold starting when it's stopped for like twelve hours.
usually I use the accelerator to give him throttle when starting. Today I was cleaning the engine bay and trying to find the problem, didn't find it. But to test it, I started it without using the accelerator and the car after two seconds of ignition started, but it was very slow, like, the car sound is the pistons and all moving parts work, usually they are really fast, but on that "test" the engine sound was very slow and after two or three seconds of working the engine shut off.
I don't know what it is, usually when this happens, I use the manual pump next to the engine to pump diesel to the engine and I use the accelerator a bit. After turning the key for around three seconds the car starts, the sound of the engine starts going faster as the key is continuously turned and the engine starts.

a few things that I remember about it, would be the oil I am using, I am in Europe and here oils are treated different. We use the thickness of the oil to talk about them. So my car apparently should have an oil we call 5W-40, but I am using 15W-40. W means winter, so basically the oil has a thickness of 15 when cold starting and when the engine is hot can go to 40 of thickness. I think the oil may cause the engine trouble because while the engine is not lubricated the car is extremely loud on the first few seconds.
another thing could be air inside the fuel system. I had a leak a few weeks ago, a tube was not so tight and it had this same problem. I took care of it myself by tightening the tube, but after a week or so the problem came again.
I searched for leaks on the fuel system this morning and couldn't find any.

so I wanted to know what can cause a thing like this. The car has trouble cold starting after many hours stopped, but for example, if I stop it and I turn it on after four hours, there is no problem, only exists if it's stopped for many hours.
Tuesday, January 1st, 2019 AT 1:36 PM

5 Replies

Tiny
KEN L
  • MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
  • 47,643 POSTS
Hello,

Can you please shoot a quick video with your phone so we can hear the noise? that would be great. You can upload it here with your response. It sounds like the engine coolant temperature sensor needs to be replaced. here is a guide to he walk you through the steps:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/coolant-temperature-sensor-cts-replacement

For you car it will look different than the guide.
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Thursday, January 3rd, 2019 AT 10:31 AM
Tiny
KHIDREAL
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I recorded the sound of the car with a tablet. I had to put down the tablet on the floor so I could go turn the key so the video got two minutes long.

the first attempt is a normal start. just got into the car, waited the pre-heating and turned the key.

second attempt I opened the hood, pressed the manual pump to inject diesel to the engine (it always eases the start if I use that pump because my car is indirect injection system, don't know if it's related but I had an electrical injection system in another car and cold or hot it would just start the same way), closed the hood and I tried my second attempt.

the sound is kind of bad sorry, my tablet records everything in format 3gpp, which is a very bad kind of sound, so the sound sounds muffled and low.

I can't upload the file, I tried uploading a MP3 file and later a zip file containing the recording and it doesn't allow me.
I am going to provide a link to an online hosting called Vocaroo. it's what I can remember right now, no need to download.
https://vocaroo.com/i/s19IDkMCAC6v
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Friday, January 4th, 2019 AT 12:23 AM
Tiny
KEN L
  • MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
  • 47,643 POSTS
Thanks for the sound bite. It sounds like the engine has low compression. here is a guide to help you do a compression test you will need the diesel adapter which goes where the glow plug is:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-test-engine-compression

Please run down this guide and report back.

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Friday, January 4th, 2019 AT 10:08 AM
Tiny
KHIDREAL
  • MEMBER
  • 11 POSTS
Could the problem be caused by a malfunctioning injection?
I had a mechanic telling me last year that I would need to replace the injection system in the future.
My car actually produces black smoke, but using an injection cleaning product makes it go away. If I don't use it it just adds more and more black smoke as it's driven, to the point of actually painting the ground with black smoke when I accelerate the car with the gearbox on neutral.

I was looking into your guide but my car doesn't seem to have that hole the guide talks about. I went looking and I can't find it.
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Friday, January 4th, 2019 AT 4:09 PM
Tiny
KEN L
  • MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
  • 47,643 POSTS
Black smoke is a sign of too much fuel or low compression that's why I wanted to to check it to see if you have a good engine or not. Please let me know.
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Saturday, January 5th, 2019 AT 11:15 AM

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