Hey Guys,

I have been trying to find a good mechanic in my area (anywhere in socal if you have recommendations) to no avail so it looks like I have to tackle this myself. Here are my three problems


  1. The car is hard to start - It takes 30-45s of cranking and lots of pumping the gas pedal to get the car to start at all. It seems like this could be an injector issue from my googling, but I want to get opinions based on everything that is happening.
  2. Rough idle when cold - Once the car does start I have a super lumpy idle until it warms up and have to realy give the engine some beans to not stall when pulling away. Once the engine is warm the idle is nice and smooth, but it is still almost impossible to pull away without a decent bit of throttle regardless of how well I feather the clutch (and I DD a 45 hp beetle so I know damn well how to feather a clutch on a no torque car)
  3. Once the engine is warm my oil pressure falls down to 1/4 the way up the gauge from the bottom and stays pegged right there. Im assuming that is lower than it should be but I honestly have no idea since I have 0 experience with these engines
  4. When I do give it the beans once it is all nice and warm I have a little bit of a gas smell.

Where would you guys even recommend I start? The car did just sit on a dealer lot not moving or starting for moths, but the records show it has at least had a full flush of all of its fluids less than a hundred miles ago (though the oil doesnt look super clean tbf). Do I start at the basics and do a full general tuneup? Anything to watch out for specifically? I had honestly not planned to work on this car myself, but given the 0 luck I have had finding mechanics that will even take it in my area it looks like I'm going to have to.


Thanks in advance,
-esk