The gear heads I know will no doubt be a little disappointed in me upon reading this post.  With the cold weather in the last couple of months, I’ve had issues starting my truck when it gets below 10 degrees Fahrenheit.  I would go to start my truck, it would crank but not fire up.  I took it to the local shop a few weeks ago and they indicated it started for them without issue.  There were possibilities thrown out like a starter issue and battery, but these were ruled out.  the mechanic I take my truck to indicated that Toyota Tacoma’s have a “bullet proof” starting system.

The weather warmed up.  I went about my business.  Another cold period came along and I took my truck in to have them try again when it was 10 degrees below zero.  The first day, they indicated it wasn’t an issue.  The second day they had a different mechanic start it without issue.  The third day the receptionist started it without issue.  I went in to pick it up and the lead mechanic wanted to watch me start it.  There was some jocularity going around as the issue seemed to be pointing to me.  Alas, it was the human in the loop that was creating the issue.  When I went to start the truck, the mechanic noticed I pressed the gas a little when I went to start it.

What I learned is fuel injected engines do not require any priming like the old carburetor engines that I grew up with.  When I pressed the gas, fuel was put into the chamber along with the automatic priming of the injection system.  Too much fuel was in the chamber with a low temperature resulting in the fuel air mixture not igniting.  The mechanic was nice about it and related a story or two about little old ladies needing retraining for newer cars.  I thanked them for the opportunity for training and drove the truck home.

The moral of this story relating to managing my business is not to apply gas for a fuel injected car.   I also had to unlearn something that had not caused any issues for over 25 years.  I initially learned how to drive on a carbureted engines and picked up habits that were not applicable to fuel injected cars.

When learning opportunities arise, we have to embrace them even at the cost of a little ego.