2003 Saturn Vue V8 AWD 125K miles

Car refuses to restart after sitting parked. Happens sporadically without any obvious reason. Battery new. Engine cranks well. Fifteen to thirty minutes later engine starts as though nothing unusual had occurred. Car has been maintained exactly according to manual on time. Car was and is the definition of reliability until last 2-3M miles. What is going on? Any thoughts on the matter.
Mickey Writ

 

I think it got tired after 125 Million miles driven. That's quite normal for that mileage.

Wild guess is - leaky injectors. Flood plugs. As fuel evaporates, they then start fine. May be a bad fuel regulator, that keeps allowing petrol in after shut down.

 

Welcome to the forums.

I think Mickey went to put a K instead of M.

 

When the car refuses to start will it roll over and fail to fire-or-will it not roll over?

 

Mikey Writ
Sorry. 125K Miles. Was thinking about my age rather than car mileage. Car starter cranks like new when trying to start. Will eventually start if left for 30-60 minutes. Thanks.

 

wont start cold or wont start hot? Or doesn't it matter? Some Saturn's have problems with worn ignition keys. If you have a different key try it and see if it works better.

 

Won't start after being driven and then sitting parked for period of time not exceeding 30 minutes. It seems as though any less time parked results in no start syndrome. If it fails to start it is then necessary to wait for at least 30 -45 minutes, try again and it usually starts immediately. So, when the engine sets idle for 5-30 minutes, is it still hot or has it cooled? That seems to be the time element involved that results in no start. Ukrbyk sees to have a logical fix involving the fuel regulator. Have suggested same to mechanic who is going to examine car Monday A.M. via electrical scan. Sounds expensive. Perhaps I can afford the repair using all the money I've saved on gas in Missouri. I will post results ASAP. Thanks to all. Great Forum.
Mikey Writ

 

The fuel rail pressure is easily measured in that vehicle.

 

Like I said - ^^^^ - fuel related. It starts fine cold, engine hot, shut down - won't restart on HOT engine. Restarts on COLD engine. Something fouls the plugs and slowly goes away as everything cools down.
My guess is - fuel. Leak somewhere.

 

When a hot engine is hard to start, most of the causes are fuel related problems. Fuel cannot circulate well due to the way in which vapor blocks it. As a result, the engine would not start as easily as it should. In worse cases, it would not start at all. This happens if the engine is extremely hot.

Until after a while the engine was shut off, it would keep on acquiring temperature. The biggest amount of water vapor would be spreading around during this process. It therefore means that during this period, there are higher chances of its obstruction to the engine. So when you are driving in hot weather and you have just turned off the car and you experience difficulty in stating the engine, do not panic. Just wait for a couple of minutes and then start it back.

Because the fuel remains inside the injectors by being under a very intense pressure, engines that are fuel injected do not experience and suffer this problem as much as others do. In this case, fuel injected engines would not become so easily moved by vapors as compared to other engines. From this fact, it can be further deduced that auto mobiles may have different problems in starting their engines.

Another reason of a difficulty in starting a vehicle is the coinciding of the engine's hot temperature to a hot season like the summer. In this scenario, refiners alter from a fuel blend to another. Due to the process where in hot weather causes fuel to evaporate faster, gasoline refiners sometimes alter from a higher hot blooded fuel to a lower one when summer approaches. The fuel could evaporate too much that it would create too much vapor and would eventually inflict the engine. This instance happens when refiners alter back to a higher hot blooded fuel while the engine is still exposed to high temperatures of the summer season.

Hot and Cold: When your Engine is Hard to Start