2000 Town & Country - Hard start, bad smell

2000 Town and Country

It is slow to start, need to crank a bit,
Will not start if gas pedal not pressed
After start, there is a strong smell of badly burned fuel
Once it starts, van runs OK, but fuel mileage is below par, 16 city, 22
highway

The Fuel pump has been replaced 3 times in less than a year
What are other possible causes ?

 

Leaky injector emptying out fuel rail when it sits, then raw gas out the
exhaust from the fuel that leak into cylinder when it does start?

 

Wow
Thanks for the quick response.


So how do I figure out
1) if there is more than one injector ?
2) Which is the faulty if (whether one or more ) ?

Is this something I can do ?
Or does it take specialized tools / knowledge ?
(Only have experience of motorcycle & car engines with carburetors)

By the way, wouldn't the dealer check / test for a leaky injector, before
they change the gas tank ?


Tnx

 

I'm not saying this is definitely your problem - but a good possibility.

Did anything change when the fuel pumps were replaced? Improved and
gradually got worse, or made no difference?

Pull out all your spark plugs, making note of which cylinder each came
out of. Does one or more look blacker/sootier than the others?

Also, here's a way to check if injector leak down that I described is
the problem: When you go to start it, turn the key to "Run', not
'Start'. After 3 seconds, turn it all the way off. Then, after three
more seconds, try to start. If it starts more quickly when you cycle
the key like that, then that is a good indication of one or more
injectors leaking down (it will still run rough at first when you first
start it up after cycling the key, but it will start quicker).

The fuel pump runs for about a second when you first turn the key on,
and doesn't run again until the computer detects that the engine is
actually running. If an injector leaked all the fuel into its cylinder
and emptied the fuel rail, the one-second fuel pump run time is not
enough to refill and pressurize the rail. Cycling the key gives it two
of those initial run times to fill and pressurize the rail.

Without cycling the key, when it does start, the one cylinder with the
leaky injector has raw fuel in it, and the other cylinders have no fuel.
It runs rough and smells of raw gas until everything evens out.

Sometimes you can run some injector cleaner thru a couple of tanks of
fuel to fix the leaky injectors. Two good injector cleanes are Techron
and Sea Foam - both available in your auto parts store.

If that is the problem and the injector cleaner doesn't fix it, you may
need a new injector.