Focus 52 plate: Problems starting when cold

[Rod Boothman]

Hi,

I've got a 52 plate 1.6 LX Focus which has been great until about a month ago. It's started being very hard to start when it's been very cold at night. Once started the car always starts for the remainder of the day.

It can take 1 - 2 minutes of cranking over before it will eventually judder into life. Linked with having to put the throttle to the floor. Normally I would have expected that to flood the engine, but in this case it's the only thing that works. The battery seems to have pently of power and cranks over strongly and doesn't fad away, even after continual cranking from cold. There is no engine management error associated with this.

I was thinking the ECU doesn't realise it's cold and therefore incorrectly setting the mixture. Hence putting the throttle down seems to help.

Has anyone experienced this before?

Cheers,
Rod

[marcdtr]

sounds to me like the crank/cam shaft sensor.There will be a fault code on the ecu if you get it read.Ford engine lights don`t come on as often as other makes of car.Makes ford look good lol