Hello! I am new to this forum! I’ve looked for similar situations to mine, but couldn’t quite find what I was looking for..

I got this car from a family member because my boyfriend said he could fix it. What’s wrong? Well. Obviously it cranks but won’t start. My family member said it ran, but like I said,it won’t start. Anyways. When it was running he said that a little bit of smoke came out when the car stopped all of a sudden. And the car would not go forward only backward. It was sitting for over a year so we took all the gas out from the relay and put new gas in.

my boyfriend checked the spark plugs and the fuel pressure and compression and the fuses on the engine and the passenger seat ones. All good. When I ran codes on it it only came up with stuff wrong with the inside of the car not anything to do with the engine. My boyfriend said it can be an electrical problem?

I really need help please and thank you. It would be a very nice first car

 

Moved this to the S40 board. Lots of possible causes for a no start. Start with the easy stuff - check fuses, test relays. Its still all about spark + fuel so if there's compression (T5s should be in the 150-160 PSI range - but that assumes a warm engine) then you'd need to start checking if you have fuel at the rail, whether the injectors are getting pulsed, and if you have spark (not as easy to test without diagnostic tools taht can read run time data). Plenty of vids onYouTube for ideas on what's DIY or when to call in a pro.

 

we already know we have good fuel pressure going through the rail. But I will check the spark it’s the only thing we haven’t checked. The thing is, we have a feeling it has to do with the turbo

 

Doubt that the turbo (alone) would cause a no-start issue. A low-power issue? You betcha! But really the turbo isn't doing anything when you're just starting the engine anyway - it should start the same with or without a working turbo.

Have you tried spraying some starting fluid into the air cleaner box / throttle body? That's always the quick and easy way to identify or eliminate fuel as the problem. If the engine fires for a few seconds, look for a fuel supply / delivery problem. If not, go onto spark (since you've already verified you have good compression).

I'd be worried about that apparent transmission problem - even if you DO get it started, putting a new tranny in an S40 isn't going to be a lot of fun... hopefully it's just a "control problem" (module, solenoid, etc.) and not an internal (almost always fatal) mechanical problem.

See if you can get more info on the "smoke"... if it was acrid-smelling, "burned wiring-smelling" smoke, you might spend more time looking for obviously damaged modules (those pertaining to the engine). If it was an oily hot-engine kind of smoke, you have a different sort of thing to look for (though the good compression removes some of the typical overheating symptoms from the search).

Just reading through the (limited) description of the car's demise, I'd suggest checking the coolant for any signs of transmission fluid.

 

+1 on the use of starting fluid. Just be careful as it’s powerful stuff. Remove the air filter and spray some into the intake. Then crank it after a 1 or 2 second spray. If it runs for a few seconds then it’s a fuel problem. If not then an ignition problem.