After been stood all day in the freezing cold my car struggled to start after work tonight (MY05 WRX). Its the second time it has happended in the last 2 weeks, where I have to turn it over for a while until it eventually fires and chuggs a little bit. After that all is well.

All I can think of is that I left the interior light on a couple of weeks ago for about 24hrs (Doh!!) which may have weakended the battery??? I had a look under the bonnet tonight and I noticed a very faint "fan belt squeling noise" when the engine revs settled at idle and I could also hearing a bit of a buzzing noise coming from the alternator direction. Is this normal?

Maybe head off to the dealer and face the ordeal of locating the problem. Anyone any ideas??

Oh yeah another thing is that the engine has started to tap in a morning for about a minute and then all is well. My old VR6 used to tap like crazy for about 5-10mins until the tappetts had pressured up, is this normal with the boxer engine?

Cheers

 

im sure sum 1 will post help to u soon mate

 

I have the same problem with my 05 wrx with ppp, mine takes about 6 chugs followed by some irregular burbling after a deep freeze. Have never left any lights on etc..etc...

Sounds like starting a drag car up!!, quite good in a way?

Anyway it is due its first service in 1500 miles so I will mention it.

 

TBH, I wouldn't mess about, just take it straight to the dealers.

Tapping - I know it's a silly question - have you checked the oil?

What sort of journeys do you do in the car?

 

Thanks for the reply, at least someone else has a similar problem, its a bit embarassing on such a new car though!! Will get it checked out I think.

I mainly do short journeys to be honest. The oil is fine though. Anyone else heard a tapping?

 

My 03 PPP STi does exactly the same thing when it's been frosty, 3 or 4 goes before it turns over, it's even been known to give a half second blast from the Alarm when it does start too!! I checked the Voltage of the battery with a Multitester and it's just over 14 Volts, not sure on the drain on the battery when the starter motor kicks in though. Any ideas guys ??????

 

I'm getting this problem at the moment, too.

 

Certainly the 02STI, and I believe the 03STI was a poor starter in the very cold weather.
It used to chug in to life very slowly at first, and either continue or stop. There used to be alot of threads on here about this in the winter, and TBH it was a pain in the @rse.
You don't see them much now though, I guess because Subaru have sorted out whetever the problem was. I had a PPP put on my MY02STI in 2004, and the problem dissapeared for me.

 

I have the same with my WRX PPP

 

Same with my 05 STi PPP.

 

Same with MY 03 sti ppp. Sounds like it's struggling to start for the first couple of secs then the revs go up and everything is ok.

 

just like me find it hard to get up when it's cold outside

 

Judging from my car (02 STI) and the others above, its normal and I wouldn't worry about it !!!!!

 

I seem to recall seeing something in the Owners manual about a procedure for starting in the cold. I tend to find pushing the clutch pedal in first before starting helps.

The same thing used to happen when I had a classic MY00 turbo. I now own an 03 Blobeye sti with ppp. Luckily it stays in the garage while I use a cheap run-a-bout.

 

Okay. Now have the owners manual to hand. In chapter 7 pages 7-4 & 7-5. page 7-4 mentions a method where you slightly depress the accelarator pedal whilst trying to start. It only mentions that wheather has to be -20 degrees c. On page 7-5 'Starting a flooded engine'. It mentions turning the starter motor for five seconds whilst fully depressing accelarator pedal. Anyway have a read.