Start car acts like it flooded

Asked by Farace Aug 12, 2016 at 12:33 PM about the Saturn L-Series

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

1996 saturn  4 dr. Sl1
When you start it after sitting a few hrs, it
hard to start like it's flooded and squeals for
a min then it all straight out. No lights come
on. Belt was changed abt 1 yr ago.

1 Answer

420

are you saying that when you start the car it the starter runs longer to get started than it used to or it starts up right away but runs rough for a few min. before smoothing out? and the squeel is not the belt but one of the pulleys that the belt runs. probably has a bearing that is going bad and is locked up until the belt heats up enough to grab that pulley and make it turn, and depending on which pulley that is it could be bogging down the engine and giving the impression of being flooded. i would take the belt off and try to spin each of the pulleys by hand and see which one dont move freely and that will be the one you need to replace to solve your problem

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