01 Taurus : wont start at certain times. kind of weird.

[hozak]

hi - just trying to see if anyone here might have an idea of what this problem could be before i have to spend money at the ford dealership.

i have a 01 taurus. this problem has happened 3 times.

1 - i went to get gas. i was very low. i put $20 in and went to start the car, but it would not turn over. i kept trying for about 5 mins and it finally turned over.

2 - now everything is fine. i use the car daily, sometimes for hour long trips a couple times week. 2 months, no problems. i go for a 10 minutes ride from house to meet someone. turn the car off for 5 minutes, go to restart it and it wont turn over. the first time i try to start it, the car seems like it wants to start, it starts to shake and almost turns over, and the rpms never reach past 1. now i wait there for 2 hours, trying the car every 5 minutes or so, nothing happens. then all of sudden, it turnsover and starts right up. you can smell a strong odor of gas in the car too. i take the car home, no problem. get home, turn it off, turn it back on, no problems.

so i go to pep boys the next day. explain this problem. he tells me to try some dry gas. i buy 2 of them, fill the car with super. he also tells me to buy gas from the same place all the time. i do that too. and i also havent been letting my tank get below a 1/4 tank before filling up again.

no problems for almost a month and half.

last night, same problem. i drove 5 minutes to get something to eat with my dad. came out an hour later and it wouldnt start. this time though it wouldnt start after 2 hours of waiting there. so i walked home, had my girlfriend drive me back 2 hours after that. and it started right up again. so it sat there for 5 hours before it would start up.

does anyone have any idea what this could be?

also, this always seems to happen on days when its pretty humid and over 90 degrees. and when im parked on a very slight incline. not a huge incline or hill, but just enough that if the car is in nutruel, it would roll back.

im sorry for the very long explanation, but i figured it might help.

Thank in advance for ANY help or ideas you could give me!

John

i forgot to mention 2 things. when this happened yesterday, i had almost a half a tank of gas. and ive been getting gas at the same place for the past 2 months.

also this happened one other time inbetween that. i went to get gas. i was pretty low. the gas light had just turned on. i got $20, which gave me about 1/3 of tank. the car wouldnt start again. i waited there for 5-10 minutes. didnt know what to do, so i decided to ask the guy to fill it up. after that it started right up, no problem.

thanks again for any help.

[shorod]

Welcome to the forum!

Please clarify "won't turn over." To me this would mean the starter doesn't turn over the engine. That does not seem consistent with your description elsewhere. Does the engine turn over just the engine doesn't start? If so, the rest of your description sounds like a fuel pump/fuel pressure issue. When is the last time a tune up was performed? What does the fuel pressure measure? This situation has been addressed multiple times on this forum. For more details, please use the "search this forum" feature from the Taurus forum main page.

If the engine doesn't even crank, then dry gas and where you get fuel isn't going to make a difference. This would likely be due to a bad battery connection, faulty battery, bad transmission range sensor, bad connection to or faulty starter, etc. Again, this type of condition has been addressed multiple times on the forum. Please search the forum for details on what the check out for a no start condition.

-Rod