GTTDI hard to start when hot

[mxneil]

Since I bought my golf tdi 110, it has always been hard to start when the engine is hot, but recently it has got worse, when the engine is winding over there is sometimes a little of a banging noise. It starts perfect when cold and runs fine also. Could it be worn valves?

The car is a 1998 and has 135k and i will be putting a new timing belt kit on soon, so might take the head off for a look.

Any help would be appriciated, thanks.

[Crasher]

Have you done a fault code read? The banging noise may be the dual mass flywheel and as these break up, they fill the starter with debris which then slows the starter down so that it cannot achieve fuel initialisation cranking speed on the fuel map. A standard test for this is to recode the ECU for automatic transmission, if the hot starting problem goes away, you change the starter and change the coding back to manual transmission. If the starter is full of bits, you will also have to fit a new clutch and flywheel.