2008 Vauxhall Astra Breeze: Starting Problem... please help!

[elodie.grenen13]

Hi, my astra has been sitting at my student residence for 2 weeks, not being driven. I'm meant to be driving home this afternoon, and have checked all the lights, tyre pressures, levels etc this morning as its a 4.5hr drive - everything was absolutely fine.

Went to switch the engine on to check nothing sounded horrible and it turned over, started for a second, then lost all its revs and cut out - making a spluttering noise. I took the key out of the ignition to basically start from scratch again, and it struggled to start, again. Third time lucky, it started fine and it was as if there was never an issue.

I have read on other forums that it may just be the fuel pump taking some time (and me switching it on too soon), and a friend has suggested its the choke - so nothing major (apparently). The car was running perfectly when I did the drive 2 weeks ago (a 300 mile round trip) and since I have owned it, its never failed to start on the first time. Also, there were no warning lights showing up on the dash to indicate an obvious fault.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Thank you.

[GreenV8S]

Could be the fuel drained out of the supply line and needed to be primed again. If so, just switching the ignition off and on a couple of times to repeat the normal priming pulse might be enough to avoid the problem.

Two weeks is quite a long time to leave a car without being driven and you may find the battery gets partially discharged and struggles to start the engine. That might get a lot worse in cold weather.

[imagineifyeswill]

I would agree with GreenV8S that it had simply lost pressure from the fuel system whilst lying unused, Your friend suggested a choke problem, how old is this Astra?, chokes dissapeared with fuel injection and there certainly hasnt been an Astra built without fuel injection since at least 1992 if not earlier.

[elodie.grenen13]

Hi guys!

Thanks for the replies! I try to avoid not using the car for long lengths of time, but with everything being so close, being in the city now, its hard to find a good excuse to drive anywhere! It's only really being used to do the 4hr journey back home... which I understand isn't an ideal scenario and will need to be resolved.

The model is 2008 so my mate who mentioned the choke was definitely very wrong !!

Thank you again for the replies, it was much appreciated and I have taken into consideration everything you guys have said!

Elodie

[Penelope Stopit]

Have you got home yet?