I have a 2005 and he's been unplugged all winter. It is January 20th and has only been started three days (the past three days) since august. I didn't have a problem until this morning. The little guys was trying so hard. But couldn't keep his engine running. Do i need a block heater and if so what kind? Also, today is supposed to be a wind chill of-50... does the wind chill effect him?
Hope you didn't just start it up those 2 days, and then shut it off without giving it a chance to get fully warmed-up by driving for 15 minutes or more. Modern engines need to be at full temp for a while, in order to burn off condensation and other nastys. Plus, the hardest thing on an engine is start-up, when much of the oil has drained down over time. And 6 months is a lot of drain time. Not saying that either one of those things caused the engine to run poorly on the third day, but they're things to be concerned about. You didn't mention how many miles on the vehicle, and how it was running before being shut down in August. One thing that comes to mind that might explain this is either condensation in the gas tank or possibly the gas beginning to turn bad after 6 months. You could try putting some gas dryer in the tank to see if that helps. Many folks prefer Seafoam to clean things up, but there are other products that work similarly. If that doesn't work, then you need to start diagnosing what the real problem is.
In August i had an oil leak and a coolant leak but i didn't know what was wrong or where to begin. Before that mess he was fine. The three days before he was running for at least 40minutes each time and definitely warmed up. But as i said he had an oil leak so his oil was fresh and had been circulating prior to this morning. And he has 70,000 miles on him.
On the oil leak, 2 are common with our Aveos. One is from the valve cover gasket, and the other is from the oil pan gasket. However, neither of these usually leaks a huge amount of oil. Both of these are easy to see by the oil collecting in the immediate vicintity.
One very common culprit for the coolant leak is a crack in the plastic thermostat housing. Sometimes this is hard to find. To confirm this on mine, I had to push a piece of newspaper under the T-stat housing, and it only leaked slightly after the engine started cooling down. These things fail like clockwork, so you might just replace it anyway with the newer metal version, even if you can't see it leaking.
It might be worth dumping in a can of Seafoam or something else like it to see if that fixes the rough running. Very easy and fairly inexpensive thing to try.
I replaced the thermostat housing and we think the filter was put on loose because i was loosing A LOT of oil. But i will try that seafoam. Will it hurt if it i don't actually need it?
i don't like using seafoam.
how old is the gas? 3 days running since august, when did you fill up, june? 6 month old gas could be a problem in its own. How much is in the tank? That would help determine a fix for that...
if there are numerous issues that can develop with a car that sits.. battery, alternator and wiring issues. water in the oil. etc.
the previous problems suggest that maybe, just maybe the temp switch is the issue since it wanted to run but couldnt. -50 degrees does not help it run anyhow, but if the coolant leak let the switch dry out, and crystalize. Then the switch might not set high idle.
Windchill is not the tempature. Windchill is what the tempature feels like due to wind. This is complete different from the actual temperature which is what will affect the car
And as rabbit said, I too am strongly against any sort of "fix all" product. I suggest something proven for a specific task like sta-bil, or gas-dri
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