QuestionQUESTION: I am having problems with my 2000 lhs starting(105,000 mi). It is inconsistent. Sometimes it will start up immediately. Sometimes it will take 2-3 seconds til it turns over. Then a little rough idling in between for maybe 10 seconds then it evens out. Just put new Champion Double Platinum plugs in (.050 gap). New air filter. I saw on another reply you mentioned an EGR valve. Could you please explain where this is located and any other thoughts you may have to this problem. There is no smell of gas under the hood. Thank you for your time.
ANSWER: Hi Joel,
The valve is located under the throttle body area. If you follow a small pipe that branches off the exhaust manifold on the right side of the engine you will find it's body is bolted into that pipe. But I need to know which size (L) engine you have to describe its removal. Once you have it off you could clean out the passageways and where you find the valve head or possibly the valve stem you could spray some WD-40 on them to make sure that the valve will close tightly and not leak exhaust gas. It if hangs ajar, that dilutes the mixture and makes for hard-starting.
The other approach would be to try for fault codes using the ignition key:"on-of-on-off-on and leave on" doing that in 5 seconds or less elapsed time. The watch the odometer window to see if the mileage reading changes to show any 4-digit numbers preceded by a P. Let me know if so and we'll see what those suggest could be the problem.
Roland
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QUESTION: Roland,
I have the 3.5 V6 engine. I will turn the key "trick" and see what I get.
Thanks again
AnswerHi Joel,
Let me know if you get any codes. The 3.5L egr valve removal does require removing the intake plenum and the fuel rail, according to the manual. That is unfortunate but apparently you can't get around doing that if you want to get the valve off for cleaning of its interior. The manual does however say that dirt between the pintel and the valve seat can cause leakage, reduced manifold vacuum, and rough idling, and so I might add hard/no starting. You might want to check the reading of your manifold vacuum when the engine is acting up which might verify the need to do this job.
Roland
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