Hard start at the morning

Hey,
I have a Skoda citigo 2012 ( a.k.a seat mi or VW up)

I have a really hard start at the morning ( or after that the car was off for 7-8 hours)
the car is choking and can’t turn on and like only in the third time it will start and it will stuter for dozens seconds ( or if i will give some gas and only then it will stabilize) and there will be gas smell outside the car.

The starter, sparks and battery is new.
When I insert the key and make the halfway turn on of the electric system I hear the gas pump turning on, more over at night before sleep the battery is 12.89 V
At the morning is 12.75V
More over tried turn on the switch wait for 30 sec and then turning on - the same.
After the car starts - runs amazing.

What can cause this problem ?

the gas smell outside the car is concerning. is the check engine light on?
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1 Like

No , engine light is not on.
And the gas smell is only when I start the car at the morning and is starts hard as I described.
If I start the car after a hour it starts perfectly and without any smell

Just guessing, leaking injector(s).

Do you have any diagnostic codes? Is the check engine light on? Have you tried holding the gas pedal all the way to the floor when cold-starting?

Not familiar w/that make/model, don’t think they are sold here in the USA. But that won’t stop me from answering (i.e. guessing about) your question … lol … I presume this is a gasoline engine. The aroma of gasoline may be normal if only noticed a short time period, and only after a cold start. Gasoline engines require a very rich mixture when starting cold, and some of that gas remains unburned and comes out the tailpipe, hence the odor. Both my Corolla and truck produce a mild gasoline odor on cold starts, lasts maybe 30 seconds.

I’m also presuming the engine starts right up fine when it is warm, and also idles perfectly when warm, and when the engine is warm, no balking when moving from a stop sign. hmmmm … my guess is there’s something wrong with the cold start system. It varies car to car, but on most 2012’s the way that works is the engine computer reads the coolant and ambient temperature sensors, and from that determines how much gasoline to inject during the cranking phase. The colder either of them reads, the more gasoline injected. If it reads really cold the computer will double pulse the injectors. Use your scan tool to verify those two sensors are reading correctly. If you don’t have a scan tool, at least check those two sensors are properly connected to the wiring harness. If the connector comes loose the computer may think it is 40 deg F below zero, and will really inject a lot of gasoline, which could explain the symptoms.

Your battery measurements are good, so that’s unlikely the problem. However, besides injecting extra gas the computer may raise the spark plug voltages on cold starts, and if that isn’t happening, that could explain it. Much less likely than the above theory though.

A vacuum leak could explain it too, as it would cause the mixture to be too lean for cold starting. The problem w/this theory is that a vacuum leak that severe would usually show up as symptoms during warm idle. And it would probably produce a “too lean” diagnostic code.

First of all thank you for the detailed explanation, learned a lot from that.

Il check the coolant and ambient sensor.

Yes I tried to start the car with the gas pedal pushed to the floor - still hard to start with no difference.

you are right , when the engine is hot he starts fine.

Btw your explanation with the pressure vacuum leak - never knew it’s a hot engine start problem - learn a lot .

Tell me can a “clogged” gas filter be a problem In my case ? ( And if not why you think so )

Seems unlikely. A clogged gas filter would usually show up as loss of power on rapid accelerations. That’s when the gas filter has to pass gasoline at high volume flows.

Some engines have what’s called a cold-start fuel injector.

Since I can’t find out if your engine does, you can.

If it does, make sure that’s not leaking.

Because that would explain the hard cold start and the smell of gas.

Tester