Cold Starts

[Teutonic_Tamer]

Just to bring up a old post. I have exact same problem with my 08 reg Normal GTi (24k miles), especially now the weather has gotten a bit colder. Every morning I start the car, although it starts first time, It hesistates, almost as if its going to fail and then fires up. I've got the Liquid Golf Gauge installed and that has not revelaed any fault codes. The car has also been dyno'd at Awesome GTi who has said the car is in healthy condition. When speaking to a staff at Awesome, they recommended checking the battery?

Is it worth leaving the car with the garage to have this problem investigated or is this a common characteristics of FSI engines?

What spec battery do you have?

The Mk5 GTI was originally specified with a 72Ah battery, but around the 2007 model year change, Wolfsburg started penny euro-cent-pinching by fitting a 70Ah battery.  Now you might think the difference between 72 and 70 isn't significant - but the Ah (Amp/hour) figure is a rating for 'slow drain' power output capacity.  What is more relevant in car batteries is the CCA or 'cold cranking amps' - this is basically the 'stress test' which is basically how much juice the battery has when trying to start a cold engine (there is a specific ambient temperature, but I can't remember it).  The original spec 72Ah had a CCA of 340A DIN / 570A SAE, whereas the cheapskate spec 70Ah had a much better CCA of 380A DIN / 640A SAE.

If anyone still has a 70Ah battery, I'd strongly recommend getting it changed for a 72Ah batt (if not a genuine OEM, then an aftermarket one with a comparable CCA rating).  I had horrendous problems with the 70Ah batt as supplied on mine (competely dead on cold mornings, repeated call-outs of VW Assist, etc, etc) - and the thick monkies at my stealer refused to accept the battery was faulty (tried fannying around with other things such as battery drain from sat nav - the useless cnuts basically just kept turning off the TIM recording settings).  I eventually went compained to VW UK (who still took a little persuading) who authorised (basically told the service 'manager') to fit the 'correct' spec 72Ah batt - and touch wood, the same battery is still going strong five years later.

[daboy3000]

Sorry to jump in on the thread but i'm having Cold and hot starting issues on my 140tdi, have changed starter motor and glow plugs and had a service, have just checked the battery and its a 72Ah but not sure how old it is.  It's got to the point where I have to bump it now rather than it just taking a while.  Any ideas?

[GLIDN]

Sorry to jump in on the thread but i'm having Cold and hot starting issues on my 140tdi, have changed starter motor and glow plugs and had a service, have just checked the battery and its a 72Ah but not sure how old it is.  It's got to the point where I have to bump it now rather than it just taking a while.  Any ideas?

this is specifically to daboy3000.
I bought a 2.0TDI (BKD motor) a little over 3 years ago. Mine also had starting issues. Eventually the car would not start at all.
in the firs 3 weeks, VW replaced all the following parts. Battery, Alternator Wiring Harness, Two injector seals and re-calibrated all the injectors.
It was poor on diesel to say the least. But never had another starting issue afterwards.

Related to this topic -

Our newly acquired GTI. Also seems to have this infamous starting problem. Only when left a while or cold. But turn key and it fails, a few seconds later car starts first pop. It also keeps having the stupid P0441 - upper limit exceeded problem. So will replace the N80 and hose next week. See if the problem then rectifies the starting problem too?

[Tr0nic]

Have had some starting difficulties too, replaced my battery with a Bosch Silver S4 and I think that made my starting much smoother 

Still isn't as good as my Dad's passat TDI tough...

[z00bz]

I have the same cold start problems BUT my GTI's symptoms are abit unique compared to the rest to confuse the matter  -

She doesnt always start up 1st time on cold starts - sounds as tho its going to die and then cranks up fine. (without me having to turn the ignition again) When it does start up, 1 of the following things happen --

* Rear wiper starts to operate it self (until I switch the wiper stalk to 'on' and then 'off') which then returns back to its normal position. 

OR

* The onboard computer completely resets with the clock, trip etc all going to zero (in which I have to set the clock again to the correct time. In addition to this I then get the Steering Wheel, ESP and TPMS lights come on dashboard - these lights then go away completely as soon as I start driving. (within a matter of seconds) My one touch windows feature 'sometimes' needs resetting again but not all the time. Sometimes the one touch window feature still seems to operate as normal.

Any thoughts on this? (She is an 05 GTi with a VARTA 70Ah battery) Warm starts are fine

[JMP]

Any thoughts on this? (She is an 05 GTi with a VARTA 70Ah battery) Warm starts are fine

Either your battery is dying or you have a bad ground connection from battery to chassis or to engine block. It might also be wiring to starter motor. What you are describing, happens because voltage drops too low during engine start (those same issues come up if you need to remove and reconnect battery). I would put it on battery charger over night and see how it behaves then. I have seen a lot of mk5 GTI's that had to change their battery after about 6 years, so it might be just that.

[Bennz]

I posted the same on other thread but wanted to mention it here too . Could the cold start issues be related to coil pack combined with low CCA of the battery ? Mine has the same issue when cold start .

Update : changed the battery to Bosch S5 and it starts immediately ever time from cold start.  74Ah and 680 CCA

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GTiBlues]

My GTI is a 2005 build. My car used to hesitate to start when I bought it last year. When I was doing work on my car few months ago, I did a battery health check...the print out read critically low. Popped down to my local TPS and picked up a new battery. I noticed this battery was a higher spec on the figures. Since my car has been a lot better on cold starts.

P/N - ZGBEB 712 096 SE Excell 096 Battery £39.65+vat

[MattyAB19]

I have 2007 gt tdi 170. First cold start it turns over and starts quickly, then immediately stalls. Next time I turn it over it starts quickly abd then stays running. Does it just every time but just once…?

[janivee]

Mk5 Edition 30, 2007 (BYD) with 186000 miles.

12/2021 (less than a year ago):
New Bosch S5 008 780A (EN) 77Ah 12V and same time a new starter motor (Ridex 2S0383) to be sure that original is not the cause.

Starts were perfect until last week, when the temperature started to get lower, closer to zero Celsius with very moist weather.

Sometimes when I turn the key, it won't start. It is totally quiet. All lights are normal, no warning lights.
Then I turn it again and it has started so far, at least on the third try. When it starts, it starts great, not like with bad or dying battery.

I drive about 25 minutes one way to work (and back), so the battery will get warmed/charged up well daily.

Do we have a real solution to this, or is it a new battery for the coming winter (again)?

I am going to change key battery, if this has something to do with that (probably not).

+1000 miles later:
With new key battery, I got few "strange starts", but after those it has started perfectly thought the winter. 
Maybe my key battery was close to dying and did not report to cars computer perfectly every time(?).

[pudding]

When you say it won't start, does turning the key do nothing at all, or it cranks over but won't fire up?

[janivee]

When you say it won't start, does turning the key do nothing at all, or it cranks over but won't fire up?

Totally quiet. No crank, no nothing, except all lights are normal.

Then turning key back off, and try again, and it goes.

[janivee]

Not starting... Car cold after a night. Dry garage.

Gives a "click" somewhere in the engine bay.

Does not turn, won't even try. Just a click of a relay.

2021: Battery (Bosch S5 008 780A (EN) 77Ah 12V) - time for new? EDIT: New Exide EA640 64Ah/640A and all seems ok. Bosch lasted only 20 months (18500miles).
2021: New starter motor (Ridex 2S0383)

No more Bosch for me.