Trouble starting

[John Picozzi]

I have booked the car in with the mechanic for the 12th and he is going to do a compression test. I recorded the cold start and played it to him. Unfortunately it is too long to download on to this thread. 1.45 minutes!!

 

[PHILIP BAXTER]

Hi @John Picozzi, and welcome from me in Cardiff. Good luck in sorting your problem.

 

[t-tony]

I have booked the car in with the mechanic for the 12th and he is going to do a compression test. I recorded the cold start and played it to him. Unfortunately it is too long to download on to this thread. 1.45 minutes!!

For video John, you need to upload it on YouTube then add a link to it on here.

Tony.

ps. Hope he can get your car sorted without huge costs. Good luck.

 

[littlefeller]

It was in fact @t-tony who came up with the cure for that.

We did a compression test on a warm engine where the results were very good and the compression was consistent through the 4 cylinders.

Then Tony asked me to test on a cold engine, when I did the test on a cold engine the numbers were all over the place.

I cured it over the course of 2-3 oil changes, in my case I used Mobil 0w-40 oil and used oil flush before changing the oil. We think it was sticky valves. I still get the very occasional cold start misfire, but you can't compare it to the video as it only ever happens once every few months and is there for less than 20 seconds.

@littlefeller has an M44 which suffers from the same issue I believe.

yep i have this too, sticky valves.
at first i didn't know what was going on, then one day just as i was turning the key a cat ran under the car so i turned the key back just is it started to crank.
then when i tried to start the car again (after chasing the cat out) the engine spun up like there was no resistance (no compression) this got me thinking ummm how did that happen.
google time - umm i have hydraulic valve lifters, so that was my eureka moment.
no real permanent cure for this, even if you were to strip and clean the cylinder head it would eventually come back, if this wasn't so then it wouldn't happen to start with.
you could cure it for around 100000 miles though.

regular oil changes will keep most of it at bay, it only really effects my engine in the winter, this leaves me to believe the oil drains out of the lifters, it gets worse as the temp drops and the difference between hot engine and cold is greater.
this idea raises the question - does 0-30 drain more than 10-40 ? being thinner and all that.

another though i had is could it simply be a blocked breather, this would go hand in hand with the oil drain idea.

 

[John Picozzi]

Thanks for your help, here's the link:

View: https://youtu.be/7k79zolRbjQ

 

[Faheem]

Sounds the same as mine did at its worst. For me it took a few oil changes to fix the issue along with some engine flush. Depending on how confident you are it may be better if you changed the oil yourself as it will be significantly cheaper (considering that multiple changes are likely needed) and you know that the job will be done properly.

I'd use an engine flush, change the oil and use some valve lifter treatment.

After a couple of days you should notice some improvement hopefully and subsequent oil changes - if needed - should improve it significantly.