Why does my car 2002 Mazda 626 crank but not start?
Check your spark plugs to see if they are wet with gas. If they are, the car is flooded. Pull the fuel pump fuse and crank the car to clean out unused fuel. Crank the car again with the fuse installed, it should start. If plugs are dry, you might have a problem with the fuel pump. Sometimes there is a check ball in the pump that fails. When this happens, the system will not maintain pressure in the line. Parking on an incline would tend to aggravate the problem. If it happens again, move the car so it is pointing down hill and wait an hour before trying again. You can also test with an in line fuel pressure gage. It should maintain pressure. It it does not, the pump needs to be replaced. In the early 90’s some Mazdas had a hard start problem in the winter. There was a service bulletin advising to use only unleaded regular gas, not premium. The premium has a higher octane rating which makes it harder to ignite (or pre-ignite or ping). An old trick in winter driving was to use regular ga
Could be that the car is flooding due to an injector not seating right (a systems cleaner could fix this). It could be that the fuel pump needs time to get pressure up in the line (see above). To deal with this turn the key to run and let the pump run for a second then start. The problem with the second item’s solution is if the engine is flooded, it will flood more. To start a flooded engine there is an override routine that is built into the engine control program. To trigger this routine, press the accelerator all the way down and hold it while cranking the engine over. After the engine starts hold the accelerator to the floor long enough to burn the excess fuel out of the system. If you have not done so recently also change the fuel filter.
