I live in brooklyn too. No problems yet.. but I only drive the car on weekends.

Going up to hunter this saturday, supposed to be like 15-25 degs up there, we'll see how it is at the end of the day.

 

I still haven't had a problem with my RA starting, and it has been getting colder here in Central PA. In fact, the real feel is around 0-degrees F. right now. The high will be 23 tomorrow.

 

Had it happen again this morning. Car was in my garage overnight as always, so probably about 50 degrees in there on average. Started up on the second try though, so not as bad as the few initial times it happened. =/

-Taranis

 

Started the car twice in ~20F weather, car started fine...

 

After I started this thread, I haven't had one problem...


Now that I've stated that I haven't had problems...I will. *plugs in camera to charge*. C'mon Murphy!

 

Yeah mine started fine through our week of ~15F weather. That is unfortunately the problem; we've yet to find the real cause. =/

-Taranis

 

At this point, I want to say that we've determined that extreme cold really isn't causing this harsh starting issue. As I've had my car not start in 30F~50F weather before...and only once did it happen sub 30F temps.

Any mod that runs into this...change thread name? "COMPLETELY RANDOM, starting issues" maybe? Heh...I haven't the slightest inkling of what could be causing these harsh starts. Maybe they're just flukes. Until I (or someone else) documents it on video/log whats going on, I guess it's too far up in the air to tell. I've also noticed that some X owners have had a similar issue, and some (non-turbo) lancers too..

 

when i was coming home for break my car had trouble starting and when it did it made a poofing noise. it was about 20°F overnight. if the majority of people are having problems with cold weather starts than i think the name is appropriate, there's always going to be a few that will be fine even when the majority aren't

 

Can't really tell AEM aways start's like that

 

I have this problem on and off here in Texas, mostly when the weather changes 10 degrees colder between when I shut it down the night before and the next morning. I've talked to the dealership about it several times now, and they said it is considered normal. They even copied the tech article about it. The article says that if it is brought up to re-flash the ECU. If that doesn't fix it, it is considered normal operation... To me it seem that there is some bug in their startup coding, but they haven't been able to find it.

 

Wow, that is pretty ridiculous.

"Oh your car doesn't start sometimes? That's normal."

I've had a few cars now, some of them REALLY crappy, and they always started unless something was actually wrong with them like a battery or a starter.

-Taranis

 

This afternoon my Ralliart had the harshest start ever. Im at my parents place in Saskatchewan and couldn't plug it in, and it was -21 Celsius outside. I cranked it once and it didn't catch. I cranked it again and the motor started, but the entire car was shaking and sounding really harsh. So I turned it off. The 3rd time I turned it over, it started and again it was harsh. I got out and went around to the rear, and the tailpipes were shaking violently and black smoke was coming out and it sounded like a big old diesel truck. After about 15 seconds it abruptly started running normally and the exhaust turned white.

 

Spoke to Mitsu today about this problem while I had my recall work done on the air-bag sensor.
According to this tech the problem could be the type of gas I put in the car. Some gas stations don't put the same additives as others do. I can't say I have been putting in good gas because I'm loyal to the price for 93 or sometimes 92 octane. The Mitsu tech says try putting gas from a good station, like Shell. I said OK. Then he says I should be fine with 89 octane too. Basically stay away from the cheap stuff.

Now, I don't know if I believe this is a huge part of this cold start problem but I'v always heard good things about Shell so I will try that but not 89. The manual recommends high octane, in an emergency you can use 89 octane. Going to do one recommendation at a time. Better fuel with better additives helps maintain the longevity of the internal engine components, not 100% sure where this will help the cold start issue. I'll try it and report if it does.

 

Maybe it was the gas... I usually put in 92 from ESSO, but yesterday I could only find 91 on the drive to Sask. I think I will add some gas-line antifreeze tomorrow.

 

I got mine back in April and I had some starting issues then when the weather was warm. I talked to the dealership about it and they looked at me like I was speaking in some foreign language (I hadn't purchased the car yet). The maintenance peeps looked at it and said it was ok and it never does it when I want it to. Since April I have had that issue a half dozen times, no matter what the temperature is. When it happens I put the pedal to the floor, turn the ignition and it's fine. Haven't seen any issues with performance at all.

A lot of posts in this thread talk about letting the RA idle before cutting the engine off. I have been letting it run without the climate control blower on (my dad has always told me that it was bad to turn off a car with the a/c or heat on....don't know how true that is) for about 60 seconds before cutting the car off and haven't had any issues since.

I haven't been able to identify any patterns at all when the starting wants to act up, and I have had it in all weather conditions. I say let it run for a minute before shutting it off and see what happens