Questions and Answers

Intrepid Starting Problem? Q. Hello Mr.Ciulla: I had written you a couple of months ago with a wiper problem and you made that repair pretty painless. Buying the parts and installing them yourself is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for the research and labor! Anyway, I have a auto start unit installed on this car. It's great on those frosty cold morning to warn the car up from indoors and then head out in a warmed up auto.

This feature has always worked flawlessly till this morning. Granted it was about twenty degrees outside here in Maryland last night with about two inches of snowfall. I am sure the wind current probably took us down to near zero. As usual I pressed the two buttons on my remote saw my driving lights flash twice and assumed the car had started as usual.

Unfortunately when I went out to get the snow off the side walks and cars I found my car wasn't running. I had the key's with me and pressed the remote again. It tried to start three more times with no luck. When I got closer to my car I noticed it had a flooded smell. I waited about ten more minutes and then tried to start it with the key. Although it still smelled flooded and was hesitant it finally did start.

I decided not to take a chance that there might be a larger problem so I ran it for about 15 minutes and shut it off. I left it at home and drove in to work with my wife. I guess my question is do you think this was a freak incident or should I be concerned?

My Dodge Intrepid has 110,000 miles on it now. It has had regular oil changes and things of that nature. It has been a while since I had it tuned up. I am not for sure of the cubic inch size but the Dodge Intrepid that year had two options of V-6's. Mine has the large version.

If you have any suggestions of things I might want to consider on future maintenance, and an idea of what may have caused my problem this morning please let me know.

I would also like to thank you again for providing this free service and knowledge to us the less fortunate. Everyone likes to save money. With your knowledge and easy directions I know you have saved many people a mint!

Thanks,
Carl

A. Thank you for the high praise Carl. I just do what I can to help people out and hopefully I do someone some good.

If it was this one isolated incident, I wouldn't worry about it too much. A fresh set of spark plugs will definitely help. And maybe a new distributor cap, rotor and ignition wires, if they haven't been replaced in a while, would go a long way in insuring your car will start every time with your remote starter.

If it starts happening on a more consistent basis, then we have something to worry about.