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- Protege 5
My '03 Protege5 is having starting issues. It no longer starts with a simple turn of the ignition switch when it has been sitting for a while. When it's warmed up, no problem. But when it has been sitting for several hours, I have to give it a boot with the gas to get it to start. When I do that, a lot of white smoke pours out of the exhaust - but it goes away after it warms up. It won't stay running unless I keep the revs up until it gets warmed up, and then I feel the idle stay above 900rpm consistently. It is also slow to return to idle speed at a stop light, and sometimes sputters down to just above stalling revs before catching itself and going back to normal idle speed. The CEL has been on for a while, but both the dealer and Autozone diagnose it as "Random Misfire", and it hasn't affected performance on the highway, as I'm still getting 33mpg. I have 263,000 miles on it, it is a manual transmission. The coils, spark plugs, spark plug wires, EGR valve, & throttle body have all been replaced recently, and the fuel pump cleaned. It passed a compression test with flying colors. I put in a can of SeaFoam semi-regularly. It uses a LOT of oil however - about a quart every 350 miles. Suggestions?