Longer than usual cranking to start car

[mookieit]

My 2015 V6 has 120K miles and for the past few months consistently the car is taking about 2 seconds cranking to start, rather than less than a second.

My experience with this is:

- On mornings ,The car starts immediately, while cranking under a second. That feels normal.

- After a 20-30 minute drive to work, I park the car at 9 a.m. and when I leave at 5:30 p.m. I notice the car cranks for about 2 seconds to start. This just started recently, maybe a few months.

- When I leave work, I am planning to not crank the car immediately, but just start it, hear the fuel pump and then start cranking . I did that once and the car started immediately. I want to do this a few more times, but I keep forgetting.

- Sometimes, like just now, I drove for 30 minutes and parked at 6 p.m. and left at 10 p.m. and it had the long crank again.

- First time I noticed this, it happened like a year ago once, was concerned and asked around, but had no conclusive answer.

- A few weeks ago, I experienced bad misfires and the problem was resolved by changing all spark plugs, coils and injectors with OEM. My cranking problem was happening even before this.

- I am in Tampa. Mentioning this because it has been kind of hot lately and I am wondering if the heat is making the cranking problem worse. I don’t think during colder weather I have this cranking issue so frequent.

I am suspecting something may be wrong with fuel pump.

Please share your experience or advice.

Sponsored

 

[ice445]

I'd suspect weak fuel pump

 

[txgt]

How old is your battery? When I replaced mine I noticed an immediate improvement on startup time (not that it was bad before, but I did notice the extra cranking amps available now).

 

[Ls_Eater]

Likely your starter Is going bad - Just had this same exact set of symptoms on my daily (a Miata) - did this for around a month before I walked out to a no crank - replaced the starter and it was good as new.

If it were a fuel pump issue then you'd not hear it prime at times.

It could be a bad battery, but that's easy enough to get looked at.

 

[ice445]

Likely your starter Is going bad - Just had this same exact set of symptoms on my daily (a Miata) - did this for around a month before I walked out to a no crank - replaced the starter and it was good as new.

If it were a fuel pump issue then you'd not hear it prime at times.

It could be a bad battery, but that's easy enough to get looked at.

Not necessarily, a pump on its way out can take longer to build pressure, especially with some heat in the system.

Not saying it can't be the starter though.

 

[Ls_Eater]

Not necessarily, a pump on its way out can take longer to build pressure, especially with some heat in the system.

Not saying it can't be the starter though.

not wrong at all - just my first hand experience.

fingers crossed it’s something simple.

 

[sk47]

Hello; Let me throw in another idea although not consistent with the symptoms. On many fuel injection (FI) systems there is a pressure relief valve on the fuel rail near the injectors. A pump should build up more pressure than is needed by the injectors. Injectors may need 55psi and the pump may build say 80 psi to keep up when the throttle is opened up. The extra pressure is allowed to bleed off to keep the fuel rail around 55 psi. The excess fuel run back to the tank.

Problem is a longer cranking time ought to happen first start in the morning if that valve is leaking and allowing pressure to drop. May only leak slightly??? Anyway the idea is it takes the pump a bit longer to build up pressure again.

 

[JVO21303]

Your fuel sock maybe dirty depending on if you have bad fuel in your area. I had this happen on my truck with an old fuel filter. A bad starter will sound like a bad starter, it will sound like it’s struggling to turn the engine over like a bad battery. Just my two cents

 

[mookieit]

How old is your battery? When I replaced mine I noticed an immediate improvement on startup time (not that it was bad before, but I did notice the extra cranking amps available now).

my battery is about a year old.

Sponsored