2000 Chevy Malibu 3.1 - starts rough on cold morning

COMPLETE Tuneup

have the carby overhauled as you may have dirt/water in the idle circuit . Adjust the idle mixture screw a bit. Adjust the automatic choke to come on more at idle.

What you have to do is take the drive belt off and a jumper cable hooked up see if it runs if it does it might be the alternator maybe going bad also spin the alternator while th belt is off and see if it makes noise

If the cat is clogged, blocking exhaust flow, the car may start normally, and may run fine while the engine is cold. Within a few mins as engine warms it will start to bog down and die when you try to acellerate, even a little. May even die out if you give it gas, while it may idle just fine.
This has been my experice in 2 different cars of different types over the years.

Your only problem friend, is the temperature sending unit/sensor. Upon cold start, this sensor wil tell the computer to go into cold start mode putting a bit more fuel in and raising the idle a bit to keep it running when cold without using the throttle. Replace that sensor and your good to go. Makes sense, right?

I had this same problem with my jeep.I took it to the dealership it was a computer but it took them 3 weeks to figure it out now here I am a year and a half later and it's starting to try and die on me again when I stop at lights. The guy who fixed my car had worked for jeep for years and said this was really hard for him to figure out he had to drive it until it died on him to even find the problem and he also told me that more commonly it's a catalytic converter that was not the case with mine. There is a sensor that needs to be replaced after so long.

could be the struts or shocks also the spring boots(rubbers that go on the end of the springs) hope it helps:)

they might have not put the proper gap on the plugs..and might have over filled the engine with too much oil..

I have a Chev 2004 Malibu and so does my cousin.. This is a problem that A LOT of these cars have, but Chevy does not see this as a SAFTY issue... so they will not fix it. This problem will continue to happen to you.. there is NO way to fix it or by pass it. Basically your ingition is not recognizing your key, and this is Chevy's crappy way of keeping your car from being stolen. You will notice when your car doesn't start, your THEFT SYSTEM light is BLINKING... What you need to do is, when this happens to you, leave your key in the ignition, and turn it to ACC. Leave it there for approximately 10 minutes, until the THEFT SYSTEM light is SOLID, not BLINKING anymore. Turn your car off, and then turn it back on. Your car should start right up. I had this happen to me EVERY SINGLE TIME I got in my car for 2 weeks! Then it stopped and I thought it wouldn't do it anymore. But just as you need to be somewhere and you are running late.. THE CAR KNOWS!!! And it will do it to you again! Good luck!

HAVE THE FUEL PRESSURE TESTED. YOU MAY NEED TO REPLACE THE FUEL FILTER AND PUMP.