2003 Yaris - Troubles Turning Over (Randomly)

[jamielm]

Hi there,

I didn't know exactly where to post this, but thought that it was most suited to this forum.

I recently bought a 2003 Toyota Yaris from a second hand dealership (relatively cheaply at £2400), and thought that there had to be a catch (I'm not very trusting of dealerships as it is). I had taken the car on a quick test drive just before buying it, and fired it up a few times to ensure that it worked correctly. After buying the car, it was seriously low on petrol and was told by the dealership to go to a local Sainsbury's and get it filled up. On the drive there, the car ran out of Petrol and I had to get someone else to put some in the car for me to get to the station and fill up.

Just after this I noticed that on random occasions, when trying to start the car up it would take a noticeably longer time to successfully fire up, whereas sometimes would fire up absolutely no problem. The issue may not be related to running out of petrol, but I believe it to be most probably tied to it. Just to be sure I put some Redex Fuel Additive in the tank, to try and get the Fuel Injectors clean (just in case any crud was sucked from the tank into the Injectors). I also cleaned the MAF sensor, just in case.

As I said, sometimes it fires up first time without issue, but sometimes it does take much longer in turning over. There also doesn't seem to be a correlation with performing a cold-start or a hot-start. I can drive for 30 miles, turn the engine off and restart it 2 minutes later only for it to struggle a bit more. On the other hand I can try and start it up first thing on a morning and it starts right up.

I'm not saying that it takes a long time (always 20 seconds or under) to fire up, but I was just wondering if anyone had any theories on why, sometimes, it takes quite a bit longer.

Apologies for rabbiting, I didn't know how much detail to go into
Thanks very much,
Jamie.

EDIT: One more thing, once it gets started there are absolutely no issues with the car. Thanks again.