Crown Vic cranks forever, but won\\'t start in cold weather

Hello folks - looking for some help on an issue I started to have with my police interceptor once the weather turned cold. I am the proud new owner of a 2004 Crown Vic P71 (162K mi.), which was purchased Oct 2012. The car has had some minor electrical issues, but overall its run great and I\\'ve already put about 3K miles on it in roughly 45 days.

The issue I\\'m having is once the weather turned cold (approx 45 deg or less) the car cranks forever but has much difficulty firing. When the weather was warmer the car never had any problem starting and fired 100% of the time without any hesitation. Once it got colder outside, the car would intermittently crank for long periods but wouldn\\'t fire. Normally 3-7 attempts at starting the car would be enough and it would start (although as it got colder the problem seemed to be progressively worse). Last night, the temp dipped into the 30\\'s and this morning I\\'m unable to start the car...period. It\\'s still cranking strong, but will not start.

So far, I haven\\'t replaced anything because it always started within minutes. I\\'m supposed to be driving out of state today for the Holidays, but am stuck with a car that won\\'t start....anyone have suggestions on how to get this P71 started (short-term) and/or how to fix the issue (long-term)??

Thanks for taking the time to read this....any suggestions would be appreciated!

MC

mchrisand1 im from the deep south so no real experience with real cold, if you get my drift, but it seems as tho a standard feeze zone winterization kit may help.i only suggest it, if the car was from the south or southwest it was never cold tuned. could be your police package is not geared to tolerate the severe nights. a bit of ether may get it to short start once it warms it should run fine. another tip, again i have no direct experience with them, but there are plugin heater kits for fuel oil and battery, also tranny fluid. each is around 100 watts and are installed dirrectly to the component in question. a lighter oil may ease the starting process, a higher octane also. long term i would find a reputable mech to cold tune the carb/injection/ then install the afore mentioned heaters. what i know is mostly hear say from my room mate (lived in minn 5 winters) and from what our mechs remove from the relocated cars from north of the mason/dixon. idk if it helps but there you go.

How did this turn out?

Regarding the heating kits; up here in Michigan it was 15F this morning and I cranked right up, no heaters or anything. My car was a Florida car and I did almost nothing in the way of a cold weather conversion except put in new washer fluid.

Just curious thanks.

Was 3 degrees this morning here in Lehi Ut and my Vic fired right up but my inside windows were all frosted up

Hi, I saw your post about your cv not starting in cold. Me too. Were you able to find an answer?
Mine wouldn't start two weeks ago. The car had been driven a few minutes before, droping off kids at school, sat and then wouldn't ignite 30 min later. Cranked good, so not battery. Hmmm. Wife took another car to work.

I checked fuel pump switch in trunk, fuel pump fuse, fuel relay fuse. All okay. Then realized I could clearly hear the pump anyways. Gave up for the moment.

A few days later, I went out and tried in about noon, and it fired right up. Wow. Took it for errands. And again the next day. No problems.

Wife went to take to work again next morning. Problem again. Cranks strong, but no start. Is this a problem with temperature? It's getting colder here in northern California. Like, 50 is all, but still different from summer.

Realizing that the car has 100k miles and needs some regularly scheduled maintenance, I bought a fuel filter (not yet replaced), air filter, and pcv valve, and need to do other things like spark plugs.

When I've been starting the car lately, I have turned the key to the on position so that the fuel pump had plenty of time to deliver gas (7seconds) before turning all the way to the crank position. Could that be it?

Anyways, last night, I parked in the warmer garage, not outside to see if it was a temperature issue. As mentioned, when it wouldn't start was always in the Early AM, and when it would start was always a bit later.

Got up extra early this morning and started it in the garage. No problem. Pulled outside to let the engine warm up for a minute. Came back and restarted it again 30 min later to show my wife. Ran 1 minute. Turned off. 10 min later, she goes out with slow key turn method, same as before, won't start! She takes other car.

Now it's 15 minutes later, I turn key, and it starts again. And it sounds FINE when driving. I don't get the sense that it is misfiring or anything. So, i dont sense spark or timing. Maybe a little gurggly (knocks/pings) if at low rpms going up a hill (downshift or turn off overdrive), but this is not necessarily un-normal performance. We do have high octane gas in it now, as wife reports it pings often on freeway with the lowest octane gas. This would seem different issues from simply not starting.

So, the joke is that the car doesn't like her, but there IS a scientific reason for it. Is it temperature related? If so, perhaps it is not engine block temperature related, but something outside the engine block. If internal temp, the fact that it ran would have increased block temp from 50 to 60. But since it sat in the colder outside temp for 40 min could indicate a bad sensor of some sort, one that is affected by temperature????

I have read people talking about the camshaft position sensor or something like this.

I dunno. Any ideas? I doubt taking it to a garage would resolve anything because they are going to look at me like I'm mad, charge me for all sorts of tests which don't have anything to do with the actual problem.

Feed me with ideas.

Hmmm.... Couple of things I would hit first are the fuel filter, and plugs. But temperature wise I would not think you were getting cold enough to cause issues. There could be a sensor with issues but that is a bit tough to locate unless you have a code. Has the check engine light ever come on? Even if it has not come on sometimes you can still pull codes you may want to take it down to your friendly ORielley/Autozone and try to pull codes just to see if anything is pulling up.