01 Taurus starting problems

Hi. I just bought an 01 Taurus, 3.0 Liter V6, automatic, 119,000 miles and overall it seems in pretty solid shape. Having said that, I've got starting problems. It goes like this:

1. When I first start the car it turns over and fires right up, then stalls in about a second. After that I can start it right up and it will run and drive just fine with plenty of power, smooth acceleration and idle, no problems whatsoever.

2. I get where I'm going and shut the car off. I come back in forty minutes or so... when I start the car it idles very roughly and often stalls. The idle will drop to around 200 rpm and even drops so low occasionally that it doesn't register on the tac. Sometimes the whole car shakes. Some of the lights, such as the check engine light, flutter while it's going through this coughing fit. After about a minute of this really nasty idle, it smooths out and runs fine.

This isn't erratic. It goes through these same steps every time I take it somewhere. If you got in my car to drive it, I could tell you exactly what it's going to do before you turn the key. There are no lights on in the display during normal driving. I know that a transmission leak was repaired before I bought the car and my mechanic that I bought the car from also replaced a bad alternator that was making the battery light come on. Those problems seem to have been taken care of.

This has me and my local mechanic very puzzled. I'd like to get the car to a place where I can trust it, and since it runs so well aside from the starting problem I'm hoping that this will be not too hard of a fix. Can anyone help me out?

put a fuel pressure guage on it,could be a weak pump or a leak down thats accuring
when its shut off.

Thanks, but now it won't start at all.

I took it for a couple drives today to see how it behaved and try and pin down anything else that could help my mechanic. I also added half a bottle of fuel injector cleaner (I only had half a tank of gas and didn't know if mixing it too strongly would hurt anything) figuring that cleaner injectors couldn't hurt anything and that if a chunk of dirt or carbon was stuck in something, maybe that would help. It had the same issues starting but ran fine for probably a total of sixty miles. Power was fine running up hills - I got it up to 80 on the Interstate just to see how it would behave. It didn't have any trouble with low power.

About a half hour ago I went out in the driveway to start it, figuring that it was still warm and that if the problem had been helped at all, it would start or not idle roughly.
It started and idled very rough for a few seconds, then shut off. Now it will turn over and try to run for about a second, then shut off. I have no idea what's wrong with it now. Really wishing I hadn't bought this car.

it does sound like a fuel pressure problem. if you can, put a guage on it to see what
the pressure is. you can spray some carb cleaner in the throtle body & see if this
helps starting.

it does sound like a fuel pressure problem. if you can, put a guage on it to see what
the pressure is. you can spray some carb cleaner in the throtle body & see if this
helps starting.


I let it sit for an hour and tried it again. I was able to get it started after cranking for a long time. It idled rough for a couple minutes, then smoothed out and idled at around 1100 RPM, then dropped back to a steady and smooth 800 RPM idle. Come to think of it, it almost acts like it's getting flooded. I am planning to get it to a garage on Monday so I'll ask them to check the fuel pressure.
I did some research on fuel pressure issues and turned up the trick of cycling the key on and off a few times to build pressure, then trying starting. When I tried this yesterday I flooded the engine, so I'm suspecting that the pump is working well and that the problem is up around the engine part of the fuel system. Would you have any ideas on what I should be looking into replacing, cleaning, repairing, or whatever?

My last vehicle was a '79 F-150 so this car is quite a technological leap for me. I point blank am looking at an almost completely foreign creature.

To test the flooding concept, you could hold the accelerator all the way to the floor when attempting to start the engine. Wide Open Throttle (WOT) at startup is also known as "Clear Flood" mode and shuts off the fuel injectors. Where this won't help is if you have leaking fuel injectors.

When's the last time this engine had a tune up? At least spark plugs, spark plug wires, fuel filters, and the air filter checked? And if you're going to check spark plugs, don't just check one or two on the front bank. People have been known to change just the front three because the rear three are a bit more challenging.

-Rod

shorod - I've only had the car about three weeks and for over half of that it's been at the local garage I bought it from, so I haven't really checked or changed anything on it.

Should I pull the spark plugs while the car is completely cold after it's been sitting overnight or should I start it for a minute and let it sit to recreate the conditions that are giving me trouble?
I've got a little know-how with an old engine but the electronics on this car put it largely beyond the range of my abilities.

You don't need to get the car warm to change the spark plugs, cold is fine. What you don't want to do is remove the plugs when the engine is hot and install the new ones when the engine is cold.

-Rod

Thanks Rod.
Adding the injector cleaner actually seems to have made the problem a little worse. It's harder to start now and requires more determination and screwing around on my part, but it still runs fine when started. I have an appointment to have the codes read on Monday and I'm going to have him check the fuel pressure too because I really have it in my head that it's got something to do with an internal loss of pressure. If I can get it fixed I'll post back again with the solution.

Update - according to the local Ford garage my car has very low fuel pressure while running and holds practically no pressure in the system when the engine is shut off. They think the problem is the fuel pump. They also suspect that I may need a flex fulel module.
I decided to go with the Napa fuel pump and my local mechanic to fix it rather than pay the estimated $700 for parts and labor that they estimate. I'll report back later to share the results.

I'm not sure if the fuel pump assembly has a 1-way valve in it or not. If not, the system not holding pressure when the engine is off doesn't really point to the fuel pump module. A leak in the system (fuel pressure regulator, stuck fuel injector) could cause the low fuel pressure as well as the rapid bleed off of pressure when the engine is off.

-Rod

I'm not sure if the fuel pump assembly has a 1-way valve in it or not. If not, the system not holding pressure when the engine is off doesn't really point to the fuel pump module. A leak in the system (fuel pressure regulator, stuck fuel injector) could cause the low fuel pressure as well as the rapid bleed off of pressure when the engine is off.

-Rod

The pump does have a check valve to hold pressure. I'm hoping it's the fuel pump since I just bought one, and since I really need the car to be reliable. They also checked the pressure while it was running and found it to be very low - at least according to that the techs told me and the invoice they gave me.
My fingers are crossed...

Well now that the fuel pump is finally replaced, the problem seems to have been taken care of. I'm hopeful that it's fixed for good. Figured I'd share in case someone else has this problem and needs a place to start.

Great, thank you for following up!

-Rod