So...I got it started this morning...kind of. You know when your car starts and you're convinced it's going to stall out at any second? yeah. She was REALLY REALLY unhappy. HELP.

Needless to say, I ended up catching a ride into work from Megan....grr. which is where i'm at now. Save my sanity.

I don't know if this could be related to the battery issue, I don't think so, cause like I said, the starter motor kicked in and she did start...she just didn't start well....

Could it be that somehow I did end up with 10w30 in my car? and if that's the case, why is it only this weekend it's giving me grief? I've had her going in just as cold before, not a problem.

I dunno what else it could be.

anyone have any ideas (and if you're reading this before 5) email me at work kblom@merchantlaw.com
if you read this after five today...then yeah. post. i'll see it when i get home.

Why don't you just take it to the dealership and have them sort it out - less agrovation that way.

how much cranking did it take to get it started?

Did you jam the throttle at all when it was running?

Have you gotten a bettery yet?

didn't touch the throttle (didn't want to flood the engine), haven't gotten the battary yet, i was going to do that over my lunch today, got cranking right away,

oh i should mention that when the car started running, i also had the down arrow of shifting down goodness on as well, which is wierd cause the car was in park.

and of course the service engine light and lamda light but they have been on forever.

sigh, i think i may have to bite the bullet and limp her to the dealership....god this is going to be so painful....

alright. i have given up. she's goin to the dealership tomorrow, whether I limp her or tow her. such degridation, she was never ment to be towed! Anyways, andy, why didn't you tell me you got insanely busy over there??? the guy told me you were booking into next week! (please dear god don't make me wait that long) bright side, he told me he'd squeeze me in where he could. so hopefully, i'm not carless for too long.

again, thank god i have a coworker living above me.

Do you drive fairly short trips at lightish load by chance? What year is your car? 93-01?

I've fixed a few 850s and pre 02 S/V70 where they were moved short distances and otherwise driven gently and wouldn't restart. What usually happens is that the valve guides are much tighter tolerance than ye olde redblock 8V (or even 16V) and the springs are much much softer (in part because the valves are lighter and smaller). Due to the port design and other factors, crud gets on the valve stem and the valve doesn't close all the way when moving the car a short distance and the fuel washing the cylinder walls down running cold for short trips doesn't help compression either

. When cold, you crank the car over, but it doesn't quite have enough compression to fire up and further compression is lost with all the gas that ends up on the cylinder walls from further cranking. If you are lucky, you throw in some fresh plugs, dry out the cylinders and fire it up and then seafoam it and proceed to beat the ever loving crap out of it, or as I like to call it "Administer an italian tune-up."

The whiteblocks seem to have some intermittant quality control issues on the top end. Even some babied ones for whatever reason burn a valve or have a little lifter issue or have the sticking valve issue as they are all getting on in miles/years. I can't find a totally consistent pattern. Yet, there are plenty of hammered ones that are fine *shrug*.

Such said, it may just need some fresh oil, battery, plugs and be totally fine.

Edit: Adding throttle to an EFI car while starting it is usually small beans for flooding. If you had some big disgusting carb with accelerator pumps galore, it would be quite different.

hmm well usually its just trips to and from work, whichi s really not that far...although Sunday night I was cruisin up and down the deerfoot to get the battary charged up again lol

you know i think i remember hearing talk about this seafoam stuff before, but i 1. cant remember what exactly it does and 2. seem to remember there being differing opinions on it...

hittin up either partsource or canadian tire this fine mornin to get a new battary, see what that does.

Wal-Mart has good prices on batteries. Try a gel-cell (the one that looks like a six-pack) - they're supposed to last longer & stuff, aren't they?

Seafoam is good if you've got alot of gunk, but sometimes you'll do it and it doesn't seem to do anything. It may or may not solve your problem, if indeed your problem stems from the engine internals. If your upshift light is coming on without you having the car in winter mode or in 3rd gear, you may have a bad PNP switch or a cruddy connection to the transmission computer, or something else. Has your car thrown any codes?

Honestly, Kat: you seem to have lots of troubles with this car that aren't necessarily related. Bad battery power may be the cause of much of it, but a new battery might not solve the issue permanently. If the car sounds like it's going to stall and is running rough, AND you've got idiot lights that have only to do with the transmission, you should get the car into the dealership for a diagnosis right away. Bad battery power might cause all of those things simeltaneously, but when the car is running the alternator should be putting out plenty of power to keep everything happy.

What James described is called "lawnmower syndrome", and is typically only found on '93-'94 cars I'm told. It happens when the car is started from dead cold and run for only 10-15 seconds, or long enough to back the car out of the garage to fetch the lawnmower. When you go to restart it, half the valves are hung open for whatever reason, and the car shows signs of a broken timing belt (uneven ruhRUHRUHruhRUHruh type cranking, no start despite good spark and fuel). This has happened to Roberta's '94 a couple of times, and the cure is to hold the accelerator to the floor and crank it until the car starts, which may be up to 60 seconds, and then you've still got to play with the throttle until the engine clears itself out. This has worked every time for Roberta & myself, and once that I know of for Vik's sister. What's important to note is that it's NOT the fault of a low battery or any other electrical issue, and the car runs 100% normally after a couple seconds of running like poop.

she is going into the dealership...i'm just waiting for the AMA tow. It's not just battary now, I tried getting a boost and it failed miserably. I mean, who knows, yes, the battary could be going, but theres more wrong than that. Found an oddity though while snooping around....my oil, (which again pretty sure i went with 5w30..and I KNOW for a fact i went synthetic...) and got changed maybe 1000-2000km ago....not long ago at all, I do know that much...its chunky and black. WTF?!?!?!?

Another oddity (Raz, I'm TOTALLY looking your way for this) was checkin the air filter...there's a cigarette butt under there...wtf lol

so, andy, cookies are in the trunk, have fun.

As far as throwing codes goes, I haven't been able to get them read in quite a while, but i know i'm still throwing that atmospheric pressure sensor/barometric gauge/whatever the hell it is lamda light error, and the change your oil you bloody idiot light...(but thats cause i didnt get it done at the dealership), just really cant afford the code reader right now, and i dont wanna get ian to drive all the way down to my end of town just to pull some codes when she's goin to the dealership anyway.


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When you go to restart it, half the valves are hung open for whatever reason, and the car shows signs of a broken timing belt (uneven ruhRUHRUHruhRUHruh type cranking, no start despite good spark and fuel). This has happened to Roberta's '94 a couple of times, and the cure is to hold the accelerator to the floor and crank it until the car starts, which may be up to 60 seconds,

****

k, again, I don't know much, I just know that's how engines get flooded, and then you be screwed. i didnt hold the accelerator to the floor but i did try giving some gas at later times of desparation. nadda.

sigh. hopefully the tow truck'll be here in the next 20 minutes...cross fingers

I'm just pissed, cause I didn't notice any symptoms of this before we got into trouble...i mean, she's generally not given me too much guff until sunday. and now, rawr! its frustrating.

Fuel injected vehicles rarely care what position the throttle is in during cranking. If the engineers designed their engine management systems so that it was possible to flood the car, they deserve to be shot. I believe with Roberta's car it's this simple: When you first turn the key, it injects enough fuel to start the car hot, and it starts to up the amout squirted the longer you crank it. When it's really cold, you've got to crank it for a few seconds, but that way it'll never actually FLOOD 'cause until it fires, there's always too LITTLE fuel being injected.

Lots of cars have a full throttle switch, and when you've got your foot on the floor (or past a certain point) it actually STOPS injecting fuel while cranking. I'm not sure if the Motronic 4.3 cars (850/60/70) do this, but I know that foot on the floor of Roberta's car cures the Lawnmower Syndrome.



Yep, that happens.

Roberta's car has given me almost all the classic 850 problems: The PNP switch, which is basically the neutral safety switch, has failed and that's a very common thing. Sends the transmission into limp-home mode, IF it lets the car start at all. The CPS (camshaft position sensor) has failed, which prevents the car from starting at all, but before it failed for good it was giving an intermittant no-start condition that could last for days or just minutes. The thermostat broke partially open, and that's also a supposedly big thing on these 5 cylinder motors. The EVAP system is dead and I still haven't fixed that, but supposedly it's as simple as changing the vent solenoid. The crankcase ventilation system was plugged when we got it, but it seems to have cleared itself because most of the oil leaks disappeared over the first year with regular synthetic oil changes. The air conditioning evaporator has a leak, and I haven't even thought about changing that, though I'll have to before this summer. The only thing that hasn't happened yet is the ABS computer failure, and that's only supposed to be on (I think) '96+ models (hers is a '94.) Thankfully this stuff hasn't cost me too much money.

yeah i already had an abs failure....how long ago....god was it in ottawa or here i cant remember now!

sigh. i'll keep y'all posted. ANDY get your cookies!

although I gotta say, it was funny, there was a silver s70 driving down glenmore when i was getting towed...and at the stop light, you can just see the two ladies checkin out my car and talking amongst themselves. I can see it now...
"Why gee, Gertrude, that looks exactly like your car!"
"It does Hortence, it does! How could someone kill off THIS kind of car?"


...i already miss my car.

...it was the bloody mofo intercooler. froze up. good ol condensation freezing and becoming ice.

I HAVE A CAR AGAIN THOUGH!!! YAY!!!!!