Today, the car had difficulties starting. The starter motor ran for 1-2 seconds, and after that the engine started, but struggled to reach idle revs. After it reached idle revs, though, everything seemed perfectly normal. The car had been standing about 2-3 hours at +8 degrees centigrade, on a steep hill (front towards uphill).

This has happened twice before now, but those occasions were during the summer and without the abnormally long starter motor running; the only issue was the struggle to idle.

I didn't log the first two incidents anywhere, but on 2012-07-20 I learned from exexpat's mistake and built my own intake for under $75. Well, not that cheap due to shipping costs, but anyway. That is the only clue, really, and what confuses me is that the car starts completely effortlessly 99.9% of times...

 

maybe injector cleaner is needed? You may not be getting a good enough jet of fuel at times due to blockage, but that's really all I can think of right now off the top of my head. I really just want to get this thread started so others will chime in!

 

Not my car but could it be fuel draining away due to the slope ?
Is there a non-return valve somewhere in the line?

 

Hey, thanks for the replies.

The first times during summer were on a flat & level car park, so the incline shouldn't play a major part. It was so steep though that I decided to mention it.

Today, it again started flawlessy both heated (block heater for 1 hour) and cold (parked for about 4 hours). I'll try to video my cold starts, in case I happen to catch the next time the problem occurs.