Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Contour won't start sometimes

Sometimes my car just cranks over and over but never catches and starts up. Usually if I release the ignition and try it again, it will fire up. So, I thought it may have been a weak pump (which I plan on replacing first chance for good measure anyway). But tonight it just wouldn't fire. Finally after about ten minutes of trying it barely fired up adn then ran fine.

I can hear the fuel pump running, so I believe it is getting fuel. Once it starts, it runs great, so I wouldn't think it is a spark problem. What could be the cause of this?

My contour does something similar. After driven a decent way, and hot, it won't start till it cools down. I've taken it to a few shops, no one knows whats wrong with it. Help ME>

I had a CIS injected car do this years ago. It turned out to be an injector leak. They leaked gas into the cylinders which flooded the engine. When the engine cooled, most of the vapors evaporated and the engine liked the rich mixture when it was cold. Only way I know to test for this is to remove the injector and power up the system with the engine off. Unless the injector is being addressed to fire, it should be dry.
Other thing is vapor lock due to low fuel pressure in the lines under the hood.

Hmmm, the weak fuel pressure idea combined with what I have read in some other posts makes me think I just may need a new fuel pump, or at least that is a good place to start.

I just bought the car and when I changed the fuel filter, it looked like it had been neglected. I have a hunch my pump is weak from trying to push fuel through a dirty filter for a long time and was going to change the pump anyways for good measure this summer. But, maybe I should get to that sooner to see if that helps my starting problem.

A faulty ECT will do that, especially if the trouble occurs when the engine is hot. A bad ECT makes the car flood. When the car doesn't want to start, try holding down the accelerator as you crank the engine. If that helps, you probably have a flooded engine, and the ECT would be a likely suspect.

If I get the codes read, a faulty ECT should show up, correct?

If not, does anyone know what the resistance should be between the ECT terminals to see if it is faulty?

Try simply cleaning the battery terminals. This sounds like a problem my car had one time and cleaning the corrosion off was my fix.

Well, I had poured a baking soda/water solution on the terminals to clean them when I first got the car. I didn't actually remove the terminals to clean, but I would think they are in pretty good shape after pouring that solution on them. Thanks for the idea though.