2004 Gs300 sometimes hard to start
 

Hi CL. Im having an intermittent starting problem that sometimes if my car sits for a while(in the morning cold start or when I get off work) It doesnt happen all the time but seems like it tends to happen when engine is cold, it doesnt wanna start up right away sometime. It has a long cranking time and takes couple tries. When it happens I usually leave the key on for about 10 seconds and it always fires right up. Once it starts up it runs fine as usual. Ive read about this symptom on those cars somewhere in this forum but I didnt bookmark it at the time and cant find the right thread that I read so not sure what exactly the problem was...... It was something has to do with gasket or seal in fuel pressure regulator or something.....Can someone chime in and explain to me what it is? Thanks.

Usually its the fuel pump itself. It has a built in check valve that can no longer hold the pressure over long periods of time, like overnight.

TrueGS300 thanks for your reply. I'm gonna change the check valve and see if it helps at all.

I hope I can get an easy access to it by removing the back seat. I've read on IS300 procedures that either you need to drop the tank or cut the hole on underseat panel to get an access to it. Hope its not the case with gs300. I've searched the forum and there's absolutely no write ups for the gs300 check valve replacement. I will remove the back seat and see tomorrow. Have you ever done this TrueGS300?

Ok the valve is way to big to remove and install from the access ports under the back seats. Because of where it sits, it literally makes it impossible to replace it from above without dropping the gas tank. Well I'm not going to do that and I will definetely cut the panel instead to get the job done lol My car is clocking over 200k miles and I'm planning to keep it for a while so. It really doesn't matter. Crappy design tbh since those things tend to crack and fail so often when highmileage.

I'm not even sure what check valve you are talking about. The fuel pump is easily removed from the back seat on the drivers side. The pump itself has a check valve. I always replace the pump when I have a loss of pressure issue with long cranks in the morning (unless of course there is an actual fuel leak).

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Hey TrueGS300. I was talking about this valve after the search. Since my car doesn't have any intermittent fuel problems when its running, I believe its losing fuel pressure when car is off for long period of time and that would cause the motor to not turn over without leaving the ignition on for a while to build a pressure back up.

If link isn't working, its also called role over valve. Check valve.

I also have EVAP P0440 code comes in every once in a while so which made me think that might be related to this fuel check valve.

That part has to do with the EVAP system. Not the kind of check valve we're talking about here. The one I'm talking about it integrated with the pump. Pumps work the same as always if all that's bad is the check valve. Makes for long cranks, but won't push any less fuel. It's the pump you need. At least for the crank problem. An EVAP system leak could never cause a long crank unless it is an actual fuel line leak.

Ok thanks so much. I will order new fuel pump, filter and sock and see if it solves the problem!