Question about starting after sitting a couple of days

When my car sits a couple of days, it starts rough - to the point I turn off the key and restart. I do this a couple of times until the car starts strong. Then all during the day, the car starts fine. I drive the car once a week. I also have a miss when it is cold but disappears after 1-2 miles. Any sugestions?

 

Try this, turn on the ignition and wait for 5-10 sec till at lest you see CEL light disappear, then crank it up.

 

Thanks, Steve. I have tried waiting awhile even after the OK light is displayed. It is almost like I have lost fuel prime?

 

I would say that my car starts rough when cold / unused as well, but rough is probably a subjective term. Mine reverts to normal in usually 3-5 seconds, and I let it warm at least 5 minutes before I move off. Makes a difference in the quality of the drive.

 

You may have a totally unrelated problem, but from what I remember those are the same symptoms right and left ECUs not communicating with each other, on startup if the car set for a while it would fire up on one side running on 4clyds till the other ECU woke up. The anti theft alarm had something to do with it.

 

I had a similar issue and ended up being a MAF (Mass Air Flow Sensor) in my case. I would start by cleaning them first with a MAF cleaner and a swab ..... If no improvement, swap left and right MAF and you'll know right away, because if they are different the car will definitely act up at first. Easy and cheap way to troubleshoot, you have nothing to lose trying these. Good luck !

 

Same experience. I would not think it's such a good idea to stop and start it several time thou.

Just start it and let it do it's thing. And yes, warm it up before moving off. It's a Ferrari.

Bang you Toyota into gear as soon as it sparks if you want to go somewhere in a hurry.

 

The car will actually stall when trying to start, which is why I just go ahead and turn if off. Interesting point about the alarm, as my battery has been dead, since I purchased it.

 

It could be your battery is going! Try replacing it cheap and easy. 200 dollar fix .

 

Replacing my battery fixed this problem for me.

 

There is a long thread here. Search "stumble start". Lots of theories on this. And, many of them could be the answer. For example ...

* Gasket leaking under the intake manifold.
* Battery is getting weak
* Mass Air Flow sensor(s) need cleaning or replacing
* Fuel pump and fuel injector pressure bleeding down too fast
* ECUs need to be reset

A local tech at the Ferrari dealership tells me he has seen where swapping the left and right ECUs fixed the problem. This requires an ECU adaptive reset. I was going to do this as well some time soon and see it that helps.

I have been experiencing the problem and I did an ECU adaptive reset. Just turn the master battery switch overnight and next morning perform the reset procedure to get the ECUs to re-learn things. That seemed to help a bit for me. But, still a bit of stumble start.

I think this symptom is very common for our cars. On my next annual maintenance I am going to have my techs to check out the gaskets on the intake manifold and the pressure bleed down in the fuel system. In mean time, when I go to start the car, if it does not catch and idle smoothly at 1200 RPM or so, I turn the key off and then restart. It then always catches and idles smoothly on the second start.

Regards,

Steve

 

Very good thread. My car is a 2003 Spider F1 with only 10,000 miles when I bought it 6 months ago.

Prior to my ownership the previous owner took the 360 to the dealer for the same complaint.

Summary per the dealer: Drive the car more often. Hard start and rough idle is typical for a Ferrari engine that sits unused for extended periods of time.

I dont experience the same issue as the previous owner as I drive my car every chance I get. I put in almost 7,000 miles now in 6 month ownership. I now have almost 18K miles.
My engine starts right up and smooth idle.

But I agree with others. Try cleaning the MAF's and check your battery. Ensure battery is fully charged and if your battery is over 5 years old - time for a new battery. Cheap fix.

Dan

 

Thanks for all the help. I will try all of the above (that I can do) first and report back.

 

you know mine did the classic wait ok turn key one side start and other tunes in in 2-3 seconds. I ran techtron fuel system cleaner and Lucas and then star bright enzyme cleaner. really did see anything change.
I know this is strange I started watching YouTube on shell products and I started to think they been in bed with each other for over 50 years. So off I went to fill up with Shell premium. One and a half tanks latter car fires right up. I had done the battery tender with no difference, the fuel seemed to clean the injectors or the stuff in tank it know fires up like it should. Give it a try. I would also like to inform thoses with 6speed manual transaxle. I did redline ns it helped some. then I removed 6 oz of gear lube and put in this BG proformance MGC.It is great made the box almost jap with a touch of USA. call and ask for mike he will fill you in. It is great.

 

I wait til the check ok light goes off and it starts no problems. When I didn't it would fall on it's face and I would have to shut off and restart sometimes.

 

Shell uses Techron.

 

recently I've been getting a little stumbling on start up too. What battery is the recommended replacement batteries for the 360?

 

Based on what I read here:

Odyssey 34R-PC1500. Perfect match to OE battery. 850CCA $266.00 at Amazon

Interstate MTP-91. $150.00 700CCA

Optima 34R. $150.00 at Autozone. 800CCA.

Hope that helps.

Dan

 

Reporting back. I changed the battery (what cheesy battery connectors) and it cured the problem. When I had the battery tested, I was told "it tests OK, but needs to be charged". I purchased a new one anyway and the car started right up. Thanks for the help!!!

 

Excellent!

Glad you got that sorted out.

Thanks for the update.

Dan

 

Get a battery tender, that is all you needed.

 

I actually drive the car at least once a week (about 40 miles at a minimum). I hope the new battery will stay good without a battery tender - but if not I will certainly purchase one. Thanks for all the help.

 

I've had my Interstate on a CTEK for 10 months....it slowly went bad still.

 

You're not listening to me. Get a Battery Tender. New battery or not, drive it everyday or once a year, you need a tender. There are computers on the car using power as the car sits draining the battery. That is causing your rough starts, even after 2 days.

 

Ray- Not always true, no matter how loudly you shout it. This problem is not always, or even most often, caused by the battery and a tender will not cure many rough start problems.