Hello all I have a 1991 Camaro RS with a 305 and the grand misfortune of having to drive it in the winter because my brother wrecked my winter car. Anyway the problem I seem to have is that when it gets cold... like 20 or below cold... the car simply doesn't want to start everything powers up but it won't crank. You can hear the ignition click but it doesn't engage the starter at all. I have eliminated the obvious battery drain possibility and this has happened enough times to eliminate the cold as coincidence. Sometimes if I fight with it enough it decides it wants to start but it's usually on some fluke screwing with the battery or wiggling the steering wheel or swearing at it I am pretty sure what I do isn't "fixing" anything the car just decides to start when it wants to. I don't know what to think honestly I could understand more if the car was cranking or there was an obvious power problem but that simply is not the case. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated thanks

 

Is it clicking like a dead battery, or just not doing anything?

If it's doing nothing at all, Maybe it VATS. My wife's 1997 would do that for a few weeks, then it just crapped out altogether. When I looked in the keyhole, I could see the contact for the VATS key had no spring left behind it, thus it wouldn't contact the resistor in the key. There is a write up on VATS and bypassing it in the tech section.

 

No no battery or starter click at all you can only hear the soft click of the ignition below the dash. On the VATS topic I suppose that i a possibility every once in awhile it won't start because of it but I can tell what it is because the security light stays on when it does that and I usually pull the key clean off the resistor or just wait 5 minutes and it starts right up but in this case no security light. Is it possible to have a VATS malfunction without throwing that light? The only dash lights on when I hold the key in the start position are Service Engine and Brake. When I turn it to start it does pull the power from the radio from the interior lights and radio like it would when you start it normally I am really rather stumped I do know how to disable the vats with a 30 cent resistor from radio shack it's just a pain in the @$$. Also I am wondering about the cold concept I mean this happens every single time the temps hit the teens or lower I am not going to call that coincidence I have never heard anyone yet with a VATS problem that correlates with temperature but there is a first time for everything I guess lol

 

Tried bypassing the VATS no improvement same symptoms any thoughts?