I have a 2007 Jeep Liberty that when it gets below 32 degrees it becomes very very hard to start. It will crank with no problem, and I can usually smell the fuel as it is trying to start. if it gets into the 20’s or below it will not start and I usually drain the battery trying. Have had this problem for a couple years now. I have changed out the Air Intake / Charge Temp Sensor.
Is there a check engine light on? How many miles on it? Have you changed the coolant temp sensor? Does the coolant temp gauge read correctly?
yes but check engine light has always been on since I got it in 2010, jeep has 250,000 miles on it.
Could this be as simple as needing a new battery with adequate CCA or even having too heavy oil in engine .
I have placed the water pump and radiator. temp gauge is accurate as far as i can tell
battery was replaced last year and still had problem,
You owned this for 12 years and never bothered fo determine why the CEL is on?? Auto parts stores will read the codes for free.
I can’t help you because you won’t take the simplest steps to help yourself.
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did last year, was told it was a coil on #4 cylinder. replaced that and light came back on a week later.
Good Grief ! I am out of here .
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Good advice above, first step towards sol’n is determining the diagnostic codes your car’s computer has stored in its memory. Won’t tell you what’s broke & needs replacing, but will provide your mechanic some very good clues. If you want to attempt a diy’er repair, post the codes here, you’ll get some ideas.
Beyond that, remember that a gasoline engine must have a much richer fuel to air mixture on cold starts than on warm starts. And the mixture has to be even more rich when it is really cold. So an engine that starts ok and runs ok when warm but won’t start when cold, pretty good chance fuel to air mixture is too weak. Either not enough fuel, or too much air.
For the fuel component, on cold starts drivetrain computer decides how much fuel to inject based on these inputs:
- ambient temperature
- coolant temperature
- measured airflow during cranking
So a good place to start would be to make sure all three of those functions are working correctly.
For the air component, a weak mixture could be caused by a leak in the vacuum system, so good idea look for cracked vacuum hoses, hoses that have fallen off, etc. If nothing obvious found, vacuum systems tend to be complex, but shops know how to do a complete vacuum system check, usually not overly expensive. They’ll tell you the problems they find, then you can fix them yourself if you like.
One more idea. An engine that needs basic tune-up sort of maintenance can get balky when it is cold. So make sure spark plugs, engine air filter, ignition coils/wires in good condition.
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Just pay for a diagnosis not a free reading of the codes. The scanner can read the temp that the engine temp sensor is reading. The dash gauge reads the engine temp from a different sensor, not the one that sets the fuel air ratio. Might be just flooding it from too much fuel.
Technically not quite correct, George. The engine needs more fuel because the air is more dense when cold but the air fuel ratio targets are pretty much the same. Especially in a catalyst equipped fuel injected engine.
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I know there are more serious issues, but if you add glow plugs can it help?
Also I heard, you should turn off everything you can to help the battery
Glow plugs are for diesel engines. This has a gas engine.
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Sorry, my bad
Thanks All. I do most of the maintenance work myself and am not used to all these freakin sensors ( I like 70’s and older vehicles) so there are 2 sensors for engine temp I assume the sensor for the starting sequence is the one at the top front of the engine below the map sensor. Plan on getting a meter put on the jeep today.
Suggest to post your query as a new topic. Click “Gen Disc” above left, then “New Topic” above right. You’ll get more useful help if you ID the car’s make/model/year/engine/transmission.
They did not have a question . They were suggesting putting in Glow Plugs to help start Goldwings vehicle .
From what I see, for V6 3.7L gasoline engine, imagine a line between the crankshaft pulley and the mass airflow sensor. The sensor order (from the crank pulley & equally spaced along that line) is inlet pressure sensor (I’m guessing this is another name for the MAP sensor), engine coolant sensor (for computer), mass airflow sensor. I don’t see reference to a second sensor for the dash coolant temp gauge, appears the computer shares the one coolant temp sensor for both jobs. Engine coolant temp sensor probably has 2 pins. MAP and airflow sensors generally would have more than 2 pins.
Note: Coolant temp sensors are usually a simple temperature sensitive resistor, no moving parts, so not a common failure item.
Chemistry-wise that makes good sense. Cold or hot, for perfect combustion still need the same ratio of gasoline to oxygen molecules. But this doesn’t seem to fully agree with the link below, which suggests a considerably richer (9 ratio) needed when starting. Do you disagree MM with what it says in the link?