Why flooring a modern classic Aston Martin for a cold start stops it from blowing up

I’m about to fire up the Aston Martin V8 Vantage after three and a half months of winter hibernation in a local storage unit (the car, that is, not me). There’s a certain frisson, not least because any last trace of Mobil 1 will have long since drained from the cylinder walls, so I’m about to fire an engine that is, in large parts, dry. And I’m going to do it with the throttle pedal pinned flat to the floor.

This is counter-intuitive, to put it mildly. The thought of the 4.3-litre quad-cam V8 exploding into life, revs flying instantly to the red line, has my finger hovering nervously over the start button. But apparently Gaydon-era Astons have a neat trick, whereby pinning the throttle tells the engine management not to send fuel and sparks to the combustion chambers. So you can crank the engine over on the starter motor until the oil pressure warning light goes out, then stop and repeat the starting process in the usual way.

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And it works, I’m colossally relieved to report. Better yet, as the V8 fires into noisily exuberant life, it’s clearly in the rudest possible health. In fact, as I drive the short distance home, the Aston appears to be just as I left it three and a half months earlier. Or so I think…

The MOT is passed with not a single advisory and the next appointment is with Hatfield-based Aston specialists Nicholas Mee & Co for the annual service (the first in my ownership). It’s all clearly going far too well. A couple of days before I’m due there, I’m giving the V8 Vantage a quick blast around my local loop when a warning triangle appears on the dash and a message flashes up: ‘Emission System Service Required’. Good job it’s booked in for a service, I tell myself.

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Chris Green, service manager at Mee & Co, isn’t too concerned when I alert him via email. ‘Quite a common issue,’ he tells me, ‘usually down to a defective lambda sensor. We keep those in stock so hopefully we can box this one off for you on the day.’

Come the day, there’s one more anxious moment as technician Paul Sussex removes the undertray that covers the rear subframe – it’s steel and is the one structural area of the Gaydon-era Vantage that has a reputation for rusting. I’m relieved to see that despite a bit of superficial scabbing, it looks in pretty decent nick. Paul finds little else amiss either – the brake pads and discs are worn but still have some life left, while a test drive suggests the same goes for the clutch; there are no oil leaks, the underside all looks straight, and the suspension has no play in the bushes. Just the emissions glitch to rectify, so I leave Paul to get on with it.

I’m relaxing with a coffee in reception when his report lands on my phone – diagnostics have thrown up a fault code relating to an intake air temperature of minus 40deg C. Now, I’m no expert, but that sounds unusually nippy. But the real bombshell is to come. Investigation of the wiring to the air mass sensors has revealed ‘evidence of rodent damage’. Nooooo.

Unfortunately said wiring disappears into the bowels of the car, so it’s going to mean a return visit and a certain amount of disassembly to establish the full extent of the damage and replace whatever needs replacing. The good news is that the car seems to be running perfectly despite the attentions of Mickey and his chums. And boy, have I missed it.

This story was first featured in evo issue 297.

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