2005 Touareg 2.5 R5 TDI - Sluggish to start

54and56 · 07-03-2016 7:41pm #1

Hi all,

I've a 2005 VW Touareg which has just under 250,000 KM's on the clock but is generally in great nick and is well looked after i.e. always serviced on time (most recently about a month ago), use quality parts and consumables etc.

4-5 times in the past week, most noticeably first thing in the morning or in the evening after a days work when it has been sitting idle for 8 hours it has struggled to start. It turns over normally and goes to fire up but just fails. When I go to start it a 2nd time it turns over for much longer and after 5-10 seconds it tries to fire, almost gets there, keeps turning and eventually fires up. Once fired up the first couple of seconds sound like the RPM's are very low, almost too low to sustain the engine but it quickly gets up to normal revs ie within 5-5 seconds and from there it drives as normal.

There is no mis firing once the engine gets going and no power flat spots or drop off's in power when driving.

If I drive the car for a while and then stop and leave it for an hour it will fire up first thing straight away which I assume is becuase it's still warm.

The sluggish starts don't happen every time, it's been intermittent but my experience over the years is that most things start off quite intermittently and eventually become a problem all the time if nothing is done to address the issue early on.

Any suggestions? I can bring it back to the garage I use but it will be next week before I get to do that and I'd like some idea that I'm not either damaging the engine or going to be stranded by it in the meantime!!

(I do have breakdown cover so being stranded wouldn't be a disaster actually)

Thanks in advance.