Trouble with Cold Start

[geokilla]

It's been doing this since the winter time but it's getting worse and worse lately, though not to the point that we're scared we'll get stranded one day. Last week, the car sat in the garage while we were out on vacation. Tried to start up the car on Monday and while the car started fine, there was no initial surge to 1500RPM before dropping back down to idle. There was a lot of vibrations caused by the engine, even after the engine was up and running. Opening the door, I heard the engine sound funny, like those poorly maintained cars clicking and clacking a bit, and sounded like the engine wasn't running at idle RPMs, even though the tach said it was. It also smelled like gasoline and/or exhaust in the garage, and my sister smelled it as well and complained.

Now here's the funny thing though. Say given the same scenario: cold start. I move the car out from the garage to the driveway to wash the car (10s driving?) then I shut it off. I start the car again after 1.5 hours, the engine should still be pretty cold right? Well I have no troubles starting the car. No gasoline smell, no rough idle, nothing. This leads me to believe that there's no problems with the battery.

[jblackburn]

Test resistance of the coolant temp sensor on the cold engine:

COOLANT TEMPERATURE SENSOR RESISTANCE TABLE

Temperature - F ( C) Ohms
32 (0) .............................................. 7300
68 (20) ............................................. 2800
176 (80) ............................................. 300
212 (100) ............................................ 150

Sounds like it may be thinking it's *too* cold outside.

[geokilla]

How would I do that...?

[tjts1]

With a multimeter. After a drive unplug the CLT, chech the resistance and repeat every 30 minutes as engine cools down.