DaveInSaltLake

my 98 Avant project barely sputters to life after sitting for a few days. It cranks slowly and when it fires up it misses and takes a few minutes to smooth out. It runs fine if I start it daily. No CEL so I'm not sure it's necessarily an electrical missfire. Pushing on the accelerator during this time has little effect other than killing the car.

The car and battery sat dead in a field for a couple years, so the story goes. I'm wondering if a weak battery could be the cause of the missing and sputtering.

The only other car that has acted similarly in my experience was the 1999 A4 V6 with a dirty throttle body, but it didn't matter how long I ran the thing....it sputtered and missed the whole time.

Any ideas?

20VT90q

Sitting for that long without a charge is hard on batteries. It may be down a cell or two.

kday

Fuel pressure?

austinado16

Throw a battery in it, put a can of BG44K in the fuel tank, and take it out on the road for an hour.

Once you have the injectors spraying properly, and cycle a bunch of hot oil through the lifters, it'll start to run like normal again.

Just Me

1. battery or voltage drop between battery and starter

2. low fuel volume delivery - probably either pump or a leaky check valve

First is probably a battery. But that's easy enough to test.

2nd is likely a fuel pump, but you should also try the following. When you start the car, turn the key to "run" and let the fuel pump run. I can hear it if all is quiet. This presurizes the line. Once the pump shuts off, or after say 10 sec, start the car. Is it different? If so, you know what's going on.

My guess is that you have low fuel volume, and when you hit the gas ( rally when you hit the "air" by opening the butterfly valve) it leans out and dies, as you noted.

Grant