Starting Issues

[duggiesmith]

A couple of days ago I was out and about in town. I stopped at friend's for no more than 5 mins, but when I got back in the car, it wouldn't start.

It turned over and spluttered a bit then cut out (it felt like the old days when you tried to start a car without using the choke - if anyone is old enough to remember them ). It did this 3 times, then on the 4th attempt, it started fine, but the MIL came on and remained on.

There was plenty of petrol in the tank and it was running fine afterwards, so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions to what may have caused it and should I be concerned that damage may have been done, maybe to the cat.

TIA

PS it's a 2007 Toyota engined Elise S

[Dominic]

Hmmm.... it had electricity, starter motor and fuel.... possibly something to do with the ignition or fuel mix??... maybe caused by a faulty sensor? That's my guess, but is just that!

[robin]

Get the codes out of the ECU as these will tell you what's up, or at least what the ECU didn't like

Cheers,
Robin

[duggiesmith]

Cheers guys
My thoughts were also something along the lines of too much/not enough fuel/air.

Robin: Do I need to get one of those readers to get the code? Is there a list somewhere of what all the codes mean?

Thanks again.

[robin]

Any competent garage will have an OBDII code reader - nothing Lotus specific about it - get the codes and post them here - I think they are all listed in the service manual for the cars (and many of them are listed on the internet too).

Cheers,
Robin

[duggiesmith]

Well the MIL has gone out all by itself (maybe my car can heal itself )
Everything seems to be fine. No starting issues and it's running smoothly, so I'm not too concerned about getting it looked. However, it has got me thinking about investing in an OBDII reader. A quick search on ebay/Amazon has brought up a vast selection starting at around £20 (eg http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Car-fault-reader- ... 53e7976a28 ).

I guess what I'm asking is are these the sorts of things others are using or should I be looking at more expensive models (I think £1,499 tops the list so far )

TIA

[robin]

The MIL does go out if the fault "clears", but the codes will still be stored.

Provided it can read the codes that's all you need.

At the very low end of the scale is a MIL reset device - can only clear codes, not read them - probably not worth it.

Higher end devices can also give you live data readings - worthwhile, but not 1,499 worth

Cheers,
Robin