Cold Non-Start

My 1991 Acura Legend LS does not start in cold weather and in the morning. Once it does, it keeps on starting and runs great. Prior to catching and starting it rattles and shakes and when I press the acclerator, it makes sounds like it is not getting enough air. The problem occured abruptly after a mechanic tried to find out why the raditor fan does not come on. That has been fixed by putting a new relay. The car has 176,000 miles and has never given starting problem before.

Given the recent history, I’d suspect the temp sensor. My guess is that in the process of diagnosing the nonfunctioning cooling fan he disconnected the temp sensor and either failed to reconnect it or reconnected it improperly.

Bring it back and mention it. He’ll probably just plug the sensor back in andyou’ll be back on the road.

Thanks the same mountainbike, but is the temprature sensor not for snesing the coolant temprature for kicking the raditor fan on. I will try your recommendation. Could it be the Ignitor?

It is, and there’s also one that lets the ECU know that the engine is cold. That’s a variable that determines how much gas to spray (injector bandwidth) and on a cold engine it even directs the ECU to ignore the oxygen sensor reading so that it can run richer than the O2 sensor would normally let it. That’s why I thought of it.

I can’t get to your documents, but I’m going to guess that you have a total of three temp sensors. If my hunch is correct and the mechanic was simply disconnecting sensors to see if they affected the fan rather than looking at Alldata or Mitchels. than he’ll probably just pug it back in and send you on your way with no charge.

Thank you again the same mountainbike, I have the service manual and will try to figure out the three temp sensors to make sure they are on and wired correctly. The mechanic I took the car to is not there anymore.

To the same mountaibike guy, I checked all the sensors’ connections. They were fine. Someone suggested that I replace the Coolant Tempreature Senor. I replaced it for about $25 and it solved the problem. Now it starts right away even in below freezing tempreatures.

congratulations. And thank you sincerely for the follow up post.

Sincere best.