Questions and Answers

Dodge Dakota Hard Starting When Cold Q. My brother has a 1996 Dodge Dakota Extended Cab with an automatic transmission and the V-8 engine. The vehicle has between 120,000, and 130,000 miles. He gets between 11 to 14 mpg. The vehicle is fuel injected. It has ABS, P/S, A/C, and cruise control. My question is concerning the starting of this vehicle.

When he goes to start it up it takes between 5 to 10 seconds to start from the point he hits his ignition. The starter engages and the engine turns over without any problems, it just takes a while for it to finally fire up.

Some people, not mechanics, have told us that there could be a check valve somewhere in the fuel line that is not working anymore; therefore causing all of the fuel in the fuel line to drain back into the tank, and then causing the fuel pump to have to fill the line back up every time the engine is turned back on after a long stint of being off.

If this is true, please let us know where this check valve is and how we can fix it. If this is not the case, please give us another idea.

Thanks for your time.
Tyler

A. What your friends are describing could be injector leak down which is caused by a faulty or hung injector. Confirmation of this possible diagnosis is done by attaching a fuel pressure gauge and running the engine for a little bit and shutting the engine down while the gauge is still connected.

The system should hold pressure for at least 10 minutes, for testing purposes, If not you do in fact have a faulty/hung injector.

There could be other causes of hard starting, sometimes a simple tune up, with fresh spark plugs, wires, cap and rotor, and new air, and fuel filters can eradicate these problems. Sometimes further diagnosis into the various sensors which control air fuel ratio are necessary.

There is a check valve, but it is part of the fuel pump and not replaceable separately.