Can anyone help? I recently bought a 1997 Protege 1.5 manual transmission. As the weather has gotten colder (45-50F) the idle problem has gotten worse. When it starts, usually right away, then it will not idle until I drive for about a mile then it's OK. I live in FL and when it was warmer(60F) it would start idling OK after about a 30secs. There are no other symptoms and the car runs good and has good gas mileage. I changed the PCV with no change.

Thanks for your input.

 

change the pcv hose, because if there is a weak point in that hose it will colapse the hose when the pcv valve opens causeing your engine to sufficate.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

I did check the pcv hose and it is hard so I can't see that it would collapse. I also put in anew grommet. Today I checked over all the vacuum hoses and electrical connections that I could see. Still having same problem.

 

are there any mondifications to the car? cold air intake ?

 

Not as far as I know or can tell.....don't know if this is relevant but the car seems to run cool like the thermostat isn't closing (don't even know if it is there!) heater takes a while to get warm and gauge needle barely moves from bottom.

Thanks for your suggestions

 

like when you say its not idleing okay do you mean that the idle goes up and down until you drive a mile then it stays normal (around 800rpm) or are you talking about your temprature gauge?

 

I'll try to explain what's been happening...

There are a couple of things with the car. Firstly the car would die after it started, and would not idle until I got a mile or two down the road. The rpms would drop off until the engine just quit. If I revved it a little it stayed running until it warmed up a bit and then would idle at 800rpm OK. The weird thing is that the last few mornings we have had temps around freezing and it idles at about 1200-1300rpm for a few minutes and then drops to about 800rpm.
The second thing is that the heater takes a long time to heat up and never gets really hot. A couple of days ago it was pretty cold here and the temp gauge hardly moved and the heater air was only warm. Missing or stuck thermostat? Could this be related to the idle problem?

Thanks.

 

I had been trying to reply again over the weekend. For some reason the response adds ' in the word won't I think after a while it got so many ' that it would error out. I removed the extras and now it let me reply. Anyway....

You have at least 2 issues. What sounds like a stuck thermostat causing the engine to never reach operating temp. I would go ahead and replace the thermostat. It's a fairly easy and inexpensive replacement.

The engine RPMs being high when starting it on a very cold day is normal. Similar tohow a choke workson a carbureted engine.

The engine stopping after starting until it's warmed up could be one of several possibilities. Give this a try. Get a spray can of fuel injection cleaner. With the little straw attached to the nozzle spray it along the top edge of the intake manifold where it bolts to the rear side of the engine block. Do this AFTER it's warmed up and idling properly.

If the RPM either goes noticably up or down you probably have a leaking intake manifold. If there is no noticable change in RPM then it's something else.

 

I have a '98. They're notorious for idling issues. Check for vacuum lines undone. There's one on the back/top of the throttle body, at least one going to the back of the intake manifold, which then goes to a vacuum solenoid off to the car's right on the firewall, which then goes to a boost sensor. Also check the rubber boot between your throttle body and air box--the accordion part might have a split somewhere in it that's not readily visible until you remove the boot and flex it and look all around it. If everything's sealed up, then consider your idle air control valve (mounted more so underneath your throttle body), and potentially your mass airflow sensor (the big square thing on top of your air box). To test them you'd need a scan tool that can monitor their voltage output while the engine is running.