I've been looking through the threads, and I've seem some on this topic, but they were all pretty old. So I was looking to see if anyone has any more information about this, or if they experienced it, what the final outcome, or fix was for the problem.
I've got a 2003 Ion 3, that I purchased two months ago. It had 11k on it when I got it. When I purchased it, it was approximately 35 months old. November 2005, marked 36 months, and with that, the expiration of my warranty. (I wasn't offered the extended service package when I purchased the car.. so that's a different battle that we're fighting.) So the dealership wants to do a $90 diagnostic.. to TRY and find the problem, and see if there are any error codes.
THE PROBLEM: It seems to be that when it is cold, usually 35 degrees or lower, the car won't start. It seems to be fairly spontaneously. Sometimes it starts, and others it doesn't. On the days where it doesn't, it acts as if it has only been turned to the auxillary setting. The lights will come on, as well as the radio. Although the odometer, or 'Message Center', will display 'Service Vehicle'. The only other coincidence I've noticed, is that my rear view compass with intermittently alternate from the temperature, to 'ICE'.
Someone in my house has to be at work at 6am every day of the week, so this is always happening early morning. The first time it happened, it took about 20 minutes, and 15 tries to get it to start. About 10 minutes into it, it would try to crank, but never successfully turn over. Once it did fire up, it sounded, and acted perfectly normal. And drove perfectly fine for a about a week and a half until it did it again. Each time I've had this problem, its progressively taken a little longer to start. Now when it tries to crank, it sounds pretty weak.. and then when it does finally start, the idle is rough for a couple of minutes.
This has happened about 6 or 7 times now. I have yet to take it in for a diagnostic, I've procrastinated because I'm a single mom, so $90 for an 'if we can find the code' isn't something viable during the holiday season for me. Although I'm finally going in next wednesday.
I found a video on one of the older threads at :
So if anyone can please give me some insight or advice about this, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!