Hi All,
 
I wonder if anyone can help me. My wife has an 02 plate 1.4 16v elegance, which has just developed an intermittent starting issue. It has done this 3 times across about 10 days now. So far, it has always been on a cold start - day day was wet, one day the car was in the garage. 
 
We have had a few issues with it recently. The EML came on about a week ago so I ran vcds across it and found that the EGR valve was totally clogged up (like completely!!!), I cleaned that out and reset the EML with good results, it hasn't been back since.
 
Thought all was well until this morning when on the drive it took a good 10-15 cranks to get it running, i've got a video of one of the failed cranks for you to look at. Once it goes, it runs pretty well and feels responsive enough - it does occasionally "hunt" a bit at idle, but nothing major.
 
This is the vid of the problem:
 
https://youtu.be/rA7UwQWw8G0
 
Can anyone offer any ideas on what might be going on?
 
History: 89k miles, belt done at 80k, full service at 87k (Feb this year)

Use VCDS to look at coolant temperature sensor reading tomorrow morning, and see if it makes sense. Does the reading agree roughly with ambient temperature first thing in the morning?

any idea where abouts in vcds that is found?

Engine module, one of the measuring blocks in the first few groups, forget which exactly.

+1 for the ECT sensor

looking at VCDS a bit further I think it is the immobiliser... 

looking at VCDS a bit further I think it is the immobiliser... 

 

Negative, the car would start then cut out.

Did you clean the throttle body and the egr pipe in the manifold ? I've seen a few where the throttle body is so gummed up they don't start

Just replace the ECT sensor, get a genuine one, they're cheap enough.