Hi,

Am new on here and am hoping that someone has the answer to this problem which is driving me crazy.

Have a 10 plate fiesta zetec which appears to not like starting straight away when the temperature gets hot!!

Bascically I drive the few miles to work, (car starts absolutely fine at 7 in the morning) cars then left for about 9 hours. Then when trying to start the car at the end of the day it doesn't turn over straight away. It makes the noise as if it's wanting to start but it doesn't actually 'start' until 5-10 seconds of holiding the key in position 3 of the starter thing!! (sorry not technically minded!!)

Have taken it to ford for its first service and told them about it, they said they could find nothing wrong & to just hold the clutch down when starting the car.

Does anyone have any ideas????!!

Holding the clutch down when starting it seems strange, the drag is minimum and I couldn't see it effecting anything this much.

From personal experience and a similar fault with another make of vehicle, the problems you described turned out to be the coolant temperature sensor sending false information to the ECU. I guess it was reporting back the engine was hot when in fact it was cold and therefore the ECU needs to fine tune the fuel/air ratio when the engine is colder. Like a choke on older vehicles with carbs.

I would request Ford to see if the ECU has stored any fault codes, it will only take them a few minutes and considering the age of your vehicle a main dealer may just do it for you, otherwise there may be a charge of like £20 or something but it depends on what they're like with customer relations lol.

Just out of interest have you owned your Fiesta since new, and if so is this very much a new thing?

I hope you get it sorted okay,

Dan

Thanks Dan, will definitely suggest/ask if they can do that.

I bought the car second hand about 5 months ago and it has been doing it for about 3-4 months.

Would an error code for this ECU show up all the time or just when it was affected??

Thanks for your help.