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Cold temp no start

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mph68

New member
My car will not start when outside temp is cold, say below 50 degrees. The starter will not engage. Once it begine to warm up it starts as if nothing happened. Ideas?
 


Very true. A trick I was taught some time ago was to turn on your headlights for about 15 - 30 seconds before starting a vehicle in cold weather as that caused current flow and thus a little warmth in the battery and such.
 
Try this and see if it helps.Disconnect the cables from the battery to the starter motor
Clean the terminals with clean dry cloth/rags Fix them back, and make sure they are properly secured and then try it when its cold. Or it could be a ignition switch your not getting fire in cold weather.

EDIT: Also! If your battery is DEAD jumpstarting wont help it! It takes about 400amp to charge a battery I believe jumpstarting is around 30 give or take. Unless your left it hooked up for about a hour.
 


Jess3103 said:
EDIT: Also! If your battery is DEAD jumpstarting wont help it! It takes about 400amp to charge a battery I believe jumpstarting is around 30 give or take. Unless your left it hooked up for about a hour.
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Jump starting gives it just enough charge to help it start the car. Then the car's alternator takes over to continue charging the battery.
 
If your battery is DEAD a car jumpstart will not start it right off hand. It takes awhile to charge it up off of a car/truck. Or so it did on a 99 mustang! The battery was DEAD hooked it up to another car it took 30min just for the lights in the inside to barley come on.
 
If that's the case and you're in a rush you can disconnect the dead car's battery. Connect the positive jumper to the dead car's fuse box and the negative to the engine block. Start the car (it will work instantly), disconnect jumpers, and reconnect battery.

The reason it takes a while is the donor car is trying to charge up the dead battery as well as start the car. You have to take one of those two out, then let the dead car's charging system take over.
 
Ok, please understand what I'm saying - this is temp related. The battery has nothing to do with this issue. When the outside temp begins to warm up, the car starts first hit, no hesitation. When it doesnt start I have full battery power to everything else, just not to the starter.

I'm guessing that no one has ever had this problem. I'll keep researching. Thanks for trying
 
mph68 said:
Ok, please understand what I'm saying - this is temp related. The battery has nothing to do with this issue. When the outside temp begins to warm up, the car starts first hit, no hesitation. When it doesnt start I have full battery power to everything else, just not to the starter.

I'm guessing that no one has ever had this problem. I'll keep researching. Thanks for trying
Click to expand...

Sabrewings said:
Could be the cold is affecting the starter relay. Or solenoid, not sure which one GPs have.
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:th_thumb-up:
 


Jess3103 said:
If your battery is DEAD a car jumpstart will not start it right off hand. It takes awhile to charge it up off of a car/truck. Or so it did on a 99 mustang! The battery was DEAD hooked it up to another car it took 30min just for the lights in the inside to barley come on.
Click to expand...

It will start instantly as long as the other cars ignition system is good. Have someone in the running car rev it to 3k rpm or so and wait 20 seconds or so and then crank the dead car while the other person is keep the other engine revs up. It works every time and I do this every winter with my company's cars/truck fleet as people always leave the lights on. Make sure all accessories in car running and car nut running are turned off to allow as much power as possible for other vehicle to start. Whatever you do, don't touch the ends of the jumper cables together to see if theirs a spark. That is VERY bad for your ignition system and I see so many people do that.
 
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