Q: Cold Starting Problems
From what I remember, the gas was lower than a quarter tank when I last drove it. I didn't drive it for one whole day. The weather has also been very cold and snowing the past couple of days. I've tried starting it multiple times since then. Just a few minutes ago, I put a bottle of HEET in the car and put the equivalence of about 3 gallons of gas from plastic jugs into the tank. I tried starting it immediately after that, and it still didn't start. My best guess right now is that the fuel line is frozen, but I don't know for sure or what to do.
My car has 70000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.
As a general rule, car engines do not like cold weather and do not do operate as well in cold weather. When you start your car in the morning and turn the key to on, the coolant temperature sensor immediately reads the temperature of the coolant and relays this to the computer indicating that the coolant is cold. The computer then knows at this point that it needs to enrich (add more fuel) the air/fuel mixture at startup due to the change in air density. When you start the car, you will notice that it idles high for a period of time until the engine warms up. This is the enrichment cold start process. This is done with what is called a cold start injector which injects more fuel into the motor until the engine reaches a specific operating temperature. The computer simply feeds a little extra gas through the fuel injectors to start the engine and then maintains a certain amount of fuel supply to the motor until it is warm. I would recommend having an expert from YourMechanic come to your location to take a look at your vehicle and diagnose your cold start issue.
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