Polo taking a few turns to start?

Who serviced it? Are you sure the plugs were replaced? Won't take a minute to pop one out and check. Bear in mind that the service schedule for many cars only has plug replacement at perhaps 40,000 miles. If that gets missed, it's a long time to the next change...

WRT the battery, a decent auto electrical garage will be able to test it. (I don't mean Halfords or Kwik Fit!) Best bet if you are worried about your Mum being stranded is to replace it if it is more than a couple of years old, especially if the car has only been used infrequently, and/or for short trips.

Chris

If it's cranking fast enough, the battery is probably OK.

"Doki" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I recently had the Saab's injectors cleaned & refurbed. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable benefit was in the time to fire from a cold start

- it's virtually instant now, whereas before it could take a little cranking as you describe.

-

If the battery is over about 4 years old it is probably due a new one, if it was my personal car then I don't generally change the battery till it dies, but a customers car needs to be perfectly reliable. In any case it would be worth getting a battery check done on the vehicle, including checking the integrity of the engine earth lead, starter lead battery connections charging ability etc. A high resistance on one join can make quite a difference to the actual voltage available.

What fuel did it mainly get used on? I have found that you seem to get more problems with cheap fuels, I sometimes use injector cleaner (add to the tank stuff) on vehicles that seem a little 'off' and it seems to perk them up, but I hadn't considered any effect on starting, but I don't tend to see the vehicles for the first start of the day often enough to know if they are bad.

I only ever use branded fuel in my own stuff.

If it's otherwise ok could be a problem with the fuel line not being pressurised quickly enough.

I serviced it, so yep, I'm sure the plugs were changed for the correct NGK ones. It had a full monty service as it's unlikely that it's had much attention before. The air filter had a manufacture date of 2005...

I've no idea how long it's been on. TBH I suspect my mum would rather wait for it to fail, as generally batteries fail on cold winter mornings, and she's got another car and breakdown cover...

I don't think this is just from a cold start. It seems to be more or less every start from what I can tell.

"Mrcheerful" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Considering it's 19yrs old and on about 180k miles, I'm not sure that's either knowable or relevant...

B'sides, when I say "cleaned", I'm not talking about borderline homeopathy with an overpriced 250ml bottle of is-it-or-isn't-it-really- autobox-fluid lobbed into 65 litres of fuel, but a proper hour-long session on an ultrasonic cleaner, with replacement of various components and flow/leakage measurements before and afterwards.

In the c.10k I've had it, it's on a mix of supermarket and branded, according to wherever I happen to be when I fill up. I've never once in any car noticed any difference.

I'll add their details to my list and try them sometime.

in which case if the ops mum turns the ignition on, waits three seconds, off then on again she could see if it improves things.

Could it be ring/bore wear due to the old oil. Now with fresh oil they aren't sealing as they should and it's taking a few turns to build up compression. I think you would notice if it was turning over sluggishly due to a battery problem :-)

Maybe - but if a valve has failed in the pump etc the pressure can collapse immediately it stops The trick would be to jury rig the pump to run before attempting to start.

Easy check is try hooking it up to your car with jumpleads & the engine not running, if it starts instantly then the batteries on the way out.

Is it drinking more oil than usual ... I think this could be a sign of ring wear ? (I'm pretending to even know here :) )