Quote Originally Posted by dr. d View Post
not elegant english or tagalog, but understand-able enough. we all do it in varying degrees. heh heh.

my guess would be the fuel filter. my old 1996 korean says the filter should be replaced every 30K. one day, at 39K, it died just before entering the gate. we had to push her in. heh heh. next day, it was just like what you described. a simple fuel filter change fixed it up.
good luck.
If it was the fuel filter, then he would have driveability issues as well.... loss of power, stalling, rough running, hesitation, etc.

I'd probably check the fuel rail and see if there's a pressure leakage (whether external or a defective check valve of sorts). If there's a slow leak, there might not be enough pressure during cold starts, especially if the car has not been driven for a while. That might explain the need to crank the engine longer to build up the fuel pressure.

Then again, it could just as well be the glow plugs. It's worth to check them out too. In fact, I'd start there.