While talking to my mechanic about some fouled plugs, he suggested that I unplug the cold start valve. He said that in most cases it's really not necessary. He said that it can put too much fuel in the engine at start up, creating a rich running condition.

In our area of Virginia, it rarely get's below 0°F.

Sometimes I think this mechanic is smoking too much carbon monoxide.

Anyone got any input to this idea?

TPL

I didn't see you state which model year you have, but before you go thinking that the cold start valve is unneeded.. make sure your car even has one :)

The cold start injector is probably not necesary, however if it were operating properly it shouldn't interfere. I would bet that it's either leaking or the coolant temp sensor has gone bad. Neither are too hard to test really.

- alex

the cold start valve doesn't do anything it's not told to do. if the temp is high enough, the temp sw leaves the cold start valve off. when i lived i va beach, it was cold enough on occasion, and that's true of the bmws and mbs i worked on there, too. if the valve is dirty and dripping, it would cause problems all the time, not just at startup. good luck, chuck.

If I remember correctly, the cold start injector injects a fixed amount of fuel shots depending on the engine temperature - a cold engine gets 10-12 shots (per second?) which is gradually reduced to zero once the engine is at operating temperature. Basically, it acts as a primer then shuts off after a short time....

Jay
84 245 GLTi
88 740 GLE

"The cold start valve is activated at approx -18 C and at engine rpm below 600. When one of these limited are exceeded the cold start valve is shut"....So you would have to be in pretty cold climate for the valve to function... I would bet that my 740 with 319,000 South Texas miles has never once used the cold start valve..

BTW..The above is quoted from Volvo Serice Manual #TP 31903/1