Starting Problems

[blergo]

Hi there,
I'm new to the forums and was hoping someone could help me. My girlfriends golf Mk3 is haveing problems starting when its cold.

it has been gradually getting worse. it will turn over but dosnt start... dosnt even try to start.

We had this problem back in december and eventually it stopped even turning over and we changed the starter motor for a brand new one and it turned over again and was a little better starting, then my girlfriend went away for a month to equador and when she got back the car was haveing problems starting again which i tracked down to a cracked rotor arm, replaced rotor arm and dizzy cap and it was starting fine again.

A week later and we are haveing problems again so i checked over it all and couldnt see anything wrong apart from one wet plug and one plug that had the end connection bent so i replaced all the plugs and gave it new fuel, air and oil filters and some nice new oil. none of which helped atall. my mechanic friend couldnt see anythign wrong with it either and was puzzled by the problems but we both agreed possibly a dodjy injector on the cylinger with wet plug as it was still sparking and eventually it just got worse and now wont start atall on cold mornings.

At this point i realised that if i take air box off and cover the intake on the throttle body with my hand so there is a vacume in the inlet manifold it will start and with a bit of fettling of said vaccume and the throttle i can get it to stay alive long enough for it to warm up enough to keep itself running.

Took the car to the garage and he wired it up to his fault computer and it came back saying nothing was wrong, he kept it till morning and it wouldnt start and he figured out if you turn it over and it dosnt start then sit with foot on accelerator for a couple of minutes and then it starts, he reacond one of the injectors were dripping fuel out over night which was pooling up in the inlet manifold and me creating a vacume was makeing it evaporate faster and him keeping accellerator flat on floor was letting it evaporate aswell.. anyway, he came to the same conclusion we had so i swapped injectors and fuel rail with ones of a mates polo 1.4 and his still starts fine in mornings and my girlfriends still dosnt start so that cant be the problem.

Basically everyone is completely stuck on what could be causeing the problem and my girlfriend is fed up putting money into trying to fix it and not getting anywhere. does anyone have any ideas what the problem could be?

Many thanks in advance,
Owen

[Crasher]

What engine is in this car and what year?

[milescook]

Just realised you said "t will turn over" I read but dosnt start... dosnt even try to start. so ignore me! I kept what I posted anyway though.
-----

Could be a loose ignition plug at the back of the barrel. They wear apparently and randomly decide not to make a connection. I solved this by taking the top of the steering column cover off (it just unclips), pushing the black plug into the barrel even more, and whilst doing that turning the key hard and fast, and it fires.

I'm selling my Golf so I'd like to know how to make that not required for the new owner.

[blergo]

its a p reg 1.4.

Thought i had solved the problem yesterday, took the ht lead from the coil to the dizzy cap off and it had corroded at the coil end, swapped it onto another golf that always starts and the other golf wouldnt start but my g/f's would so we went and bought a new lead (didnt get a full set because they are like £80) and same problem again this morning so cant have been what was wrong. local garage that said it was a dripping injector are going to test the coil tommorow on their "new coil testing maching" whatever that means, whatever happened to a good ol' multimeter?

anyway, to recap so far we have changed all the filters, changed the oil, ran a bottle of injector cleaner through it, changed the spark plugs, changed the dizzy cap, changed the rotor arm and changed the lead from the coil to the distributor. oh.. and changed the starter motor not that long ago.. the computer reacons nothing is wrong.. saying all that today it smelled a bit petroly, like it was running a bit rich :S
Owen

[Crasher]

Could be the distributor hall sender, coil or coolant temperature sender reading too high which may not come up as a fault code.