Hey guys, new to the forum, new protégé 5 owner (used). Just bought a 2002 protégé 5 2.0L with 211000 KM on it. Car was running great for the first few days, minus an exhaust leak which was tackled this weekend. However, on Friday when I hopped in to leave work I turned the key and got nothing, 2 more trys with nothing then 4th time it started like normal, drove perfect on the way home. Saturday AM I got up and popped the hood and disconnected the battery (neg first) and cleaned the terminals as they were pretty gunky, thinking this may have been why it didn't start up right away. Hooked back up and started it up fine, with some poor idling. I know the computer needs to relearn after being unhooked but it has now been a couple days which included some a couple around town boots, a 20 minute freeway drive on a separate jaunt, and another couple around town drives. The car now starts fine but when I pull to a stop light or sign and come to a stop it idles down to 200rpm for about 10 seconds then comes up to 500-600. Is this normal for the vehicle to relearn for that long? I had been told before it would only need 1 or 2 good drives to be back to normal. Any ideas?

 

First you should scan it for trouble codes, if there's no trouble code I suggest you to clean the mass airflow sensor, (very common issue with these cars) it's located on the air filter box, remove it, and clean it with sensor cleaner spray or contact spray or with carb cleaner. It's expensive to replace it and you can't be 100% sure... Check your air filter, check the air hose for cracks (between the air filter box and the throttle) This is what you can do at home... Also bad fuel pressure may cause this. Let me know.

 

hey so poking around under the hood tonight with my step dad (mechanic). He was checking the exhaust fix I had done and seeing how much better it sounded and we were discussing the issues you raised with these vehicles. He said we can check all that out Saturday when we do the brakes, he suspects the starting issue to be the alternator, possibly a diode gone. We checked the air filter, I have one on order to pick up for Saturday and noticed the Air Cleaner Intake Hose is cracked in 3 spots...he thinks that is likely the idle issue. No check engine lights so I haven't run for codes but will update Sunday or Monday once the work is done to see if that was the problem. Thanks for the advice