Hard to start when cold ..please help!!

Hi everyone I am new here and desperate to find the problem that is wrong with my '95 Corolla. Just to give some history on it I am the third owner and it has 162,000 miles on it. Thus far the car has been a great car not too many problems. The problem: hard to start when it's cold. The car will start on occasion fine but when it's out of the garage and it's cold you might as well forget about it. The problem started over a year ago at that time the dealership rebuilt the contacts on the starter. That did not fix it. So then I had the plugs and rotar buttom replaced. Seemed to work for a while but you had to press the gas pedal down one time before starting it. Then warmer weather came and it started fine. Now that it's cold weather again the problem is getting worse! I have now replaced the battery , starter (which now sounds dreadful when it tries to start ,maybe hitting a broken tooth on the flywheel,toyota brand) plugs and wires (toyota brand seem to work best) and the fuel filter. Done the self diagnostics on it as well and no codes came out. Someone also told me that it seems to be "running rich". So if you have any ideas I would greatly appreciate it!!

Well after two attempts from two different mechanics I have taken the car to the dealership. New symptom on the way there was it stalled out. I am thinking fuel pump so I'll find out soon from them and what the damage will be to fix it . I am afraid to see the estimate. I read that if the fuel pump is going bad that it won't keep the fuel in the line needed to start the car so that could be why it won't start when cold. Well I'll post the problem when I find out .

Could be the ign. timing out of spec too. My 'Rolla was fairly "competetive" to start when cold, wasn't shifting right, fuel mileage was off (idled high), and every so often it would diesel for a second when shutoff.

The previous owner had the ignition advanced a bit too much, which in turn I believe fried the coil (was only 6 mos or so old). After replacing the coil and rotor everything is perfect, starts right up, shifts much better, idles at correct speed, gas mileage went from 22 mpg to 34mpg city, and shuts off fine.

That is what the car does as well. The starting problem has been fixed cost a little over 200 to fix at the dealership. It was the crank position sensor that went bad. However it does idle very high and uses more gas than it should. Thanks for the input maybe I could try those things to fix that problem. The rotor do you mean the rotor button? If so we've had that replaced once and it didn't fix the idle problem.

hey, sorry to bother, just thought id send you an email...did you ever get your corolla to work properly, i have one too same year and close to same miles, and it did the same thing as yours, 8 months and coulnt tell what was wrong with it maybe its the same thing as yours..let me know if that worked for you...

The starting problem in mine is fixed after they replaced the crank position sensor. Cost me around $268 at the dealership but after not having a car for 2 months I didn't care. The only thing it does now is it idles high.Didn't start that until I had the timing belt replaced I don't think. The belt that came off of it was ready to shred at any min. Getting ready to replace rotors and pads right now on it. The brakes are spongy and the rotors have been turned twice already. Let me know how yours turns out. Good Luck!

I've had fuel injected vehicles idle high when I (slightly) misplaced a gasket on the intake manifold. Did your guys remove the intake before they did the timing belt?

My '95 seems to do the same as crazeedrivr's. When the temp outside is cold, the first time I crank the engine, the starter makes a grinding sound but then it usually starts on the 2nd or 3rd try. I replaced the starter last winter and the battery, but as soon as the cold temps came, it did it again. I thought maybe I bought a bad starter. Do you think my c.p.s could be going bad too?

Why would the cold outside temperature cause the crank position sensor to act up? This seems a little wierd but I hope it is my problem too. (Maybe just cleaning it will help)

I am not sure on that one but thanks for the heads up. I'll look into it.

Not sure why mine was getting worse with colder weather unless it was just because the cold is harder on the engine. One other thing I did to it was replace the battery terminals. Does yours just crank and crank , then you could turn the key back and try again and it start? That's what mine did. Once u got it started couldn't tell anything was wrong with it and then towards the end before I took it to the dealership it died on me while I was driving. Let us know how it turns out.

Mine makes a screechy grinding noise at the starter on the first crank and won't start. Then it will start fine on the next crank, but if the weather is warm it starts fine everytime. When did you replace the battery terminals? Maybe you had 2 problems?

Hey, good thing you guys started replaying on this subject..Well my 95 toyota does the same thing, it starts sometimes, i crank and crank and nothing until i give the ignition switch a little toggle and the engine seems to want to start but it then seems to smoke white out of the throttle body side, i have also replaced the distributor, the crank sensor, the head gasket, and other sensors, but nothing, it got worse now, before sometimes it would start with a little twist on the ignition, now it turns and turns until the batt dies.. i have tried to look for the Diagnostics port where you hook up the reader but cant seem to find it anywhere, except for the one in the engine compartment, could that possibly be the hook up to the ecu.. also the engines when it turns on and i give it some slight throttle it dies out, i think it is a little too rich, but cant find a sensor that controles the mixture..

I believe I did have two different problems. I replaced the terminals May of 06 and the sensor this past Dec. I think.

Don't overlook your O2 sensors. They give an input to the computer which will determine (in part with other sensors) the fuel mixture. Pat