Sonic 1.8L long start Help
 

Hello,

I figured I would see if I could get some of you smart Car owners to help me figure out an issue with my daily driver. Car is a 2013 Sonic 1.8L with 102K mile. Recently, the car is taking too long about 8 to 10 seconds to start the engine. It cranks right away but it doesn't start up the engine. It seems to be worse after letting the car sit for a few hours or overnight.

What should I be looking at?
1. Spark plus are brand new. That did nothing
3. I tried energizing the fuel pump a couple of times before trying to crank the engine to see if that would improve starting time. This had no effect.
3. Starter is still OEM.

What should I look at next? Upon researching, I guess the engine coolant temperature sensor could be at fault here? Any suggestions about what to look at to fix this issue. The car runs wells overall. It does seem to be less fuel efficient but idk if it's the roof rack.

Anyway any assistance on what to/how to test next would be cool.

Bet your timing belt has jumped a couple teeth at the crank pulley if everything else checks out ok. Pretty common and your mileage is high enough if your still on the original belt. Might want to get it into a shop to be checked out. Bad things happen if it jumps to many teeth or has belt failure.

Yes still on OEM timing belt. What other symptoms will i have if the timing belt jumped? I am set to do the timing belt swap soon, should i not do it?

You need to have the special tool kit to do this repair properly. If you have the ability, removing the covers and balancer will give you access to the timing marks to verify jumped timing and belt condition. Take your time and follow the directions to the t as it's easy to be a tooth off on the intake cam even with the special tools.

I have seen the crank gear be 2 teeth off with no cam to crank codes stored but have also had one of the cams be 1 tooth off and set a cam to crank code. The excessive long crank with no other failure indicators pointing to sensor or fueling issues points to potential timing problem.

Got it. Thanks! does it matter that if I attempt to start the car but quickly shut off. Then, try a second try the car turns on right away that second time? I was reading and maybe a bad fuel pump? So if i crank and quickly turn off, then crank again, the car starts right away every single time.

Have you scanned for codes?

Check the purge solenoid. I had that happen to mine once. Maybe clean the throttle body. If you are going to change out the timing belt, I have a brand new tool to lock the timing gears. I was going to do my belt on my Sonic, but I sold it last year.

Ok probably not as important but figured I would update maybe it will help someone later on. I checked my fuel rail pressure. While running it's good. Once I shut off the car, it goes to 0 immediately. After reading, it seems the check valve on the fuel pump has gone bad. So new fuel pump is needed. Parts on the way. Will update after i do the swap.

Thats much better than a jumped timing belt. Scanner with full data capabilities is the first tool I bring to any car with drivability issues. Good luck, hope that remedies the issue.

I finished today. New fuel pump in. Initially i got the wrong one, i guess my sonic is flex fuel. Anyways, seems to have fixed the issue. I will start tomorrow morning And see how it goes