Question1995 Cirrus 2.5 V6 won,t start in sudden drop in tempeture or wet conditions in inital start-up. We changed the plugs, wires and roto. Dry warm days (above 30 is no problems). It,s just the sudden changes. In December we had poor performance while driving. This delveloped transmission problems. Replaced the trans and had no more lock-out in first. Now it,s the start-up troubles. Thanks for the advice.
AnswerHi Greg,
The one component that might also be subject to breakdown in damp conditions is the distributor cap, so that might be worth examing closely for any cracks or carbon traces at the towers or wire sockets. Then also, in the nighttime you might want to open the hood while the engine is idling in a dark location and see if you observe any arcing in the high tension wires and components, which is another diagnostic technique.
There is also the possibility that anyother part of the engine operating system is flakey and fortunately there is an on-board self-diagnostic capability. The most useful thing to do would be to try to get the fault codes that may be stored in the engine controller memory to readout. Try using the ignition key: turn it "on-off-on-off-on" and leave it "on" (doing this quickly, no longer than 5 seconds). By "on" I mean just the normal position when the engine is running, not the cranking position. The 'check engine'light will remain on when you leave the key in the "on" position with the engine still not running. But then watch the 'check engine' light to begin flashing, then pause, flashing, pause, etc. Count the number of flashes before each pause and keep track of the numbers. Repeat the readout and verify the counts are correct. Then group them in pairs in the order that they came out, thus forming two digit numbers. You may notice that the pause is shorter between the digits of a given number, and longer between the numbers themselves. Then send me a 'follow-up' question telling me the results of your readout. By the way, 55 will be the last number (two groups of 5 flashes each) and that is the code for "end of readout".
I have the troubleshooting manual for your engine and we can look up the possibilities of what is wrong based upon what fault codes you show.
There is also an essay on fault codes at the site:
http://www.allpar.com/fix/codes.html
which gives the meaning of the code numbers. But then you need to get specific info for what exactly might be the diagnostic tests or parts to replace to complete the repair and ishould be able to give you some direction on that.So those are some ideas for you to consider. Let me know what happens and how I might be of help.
Roland
