'91 190e 2.3 problems starting

[7randolph7]

Please help,
I have a 1991 190e 2.3 and every morning is a roll of the dice to see if it will start. In general the car usually needs about 4 or 5 attempts before it will catch early in the morning, occasionally it will not start and I have to give up but hours later it will fire up. I had it in the shop last week due to this problem and after 4 days of starting every time for the mechanic they replaced the overload relay and said they hoped that was the problem. It wasn't. The shop said it wasn't the cold start system, they cleaned it and watched it work. I bought the car a few months ago, the original owner said the car always started if not on the first attempt always on the second and he recently took it to a mechanic who "opened adjustment for mixture control" in order to adjust so it would pass smog (I live in California). I originally took it to that mechanic but he had a heart attack and is in the hospital but I told the other garage about this and they said they checked the mixture and that was not that problem. I'm at a serious loss here being that it is my only vehicle. Any help would be greatly appreciated especially from people who've experienced similar problems!

[stevebfl]

One should start evaluation of cold start symptoms with a look at both the starting and cold enrichment current values to the EHA. This also evaluates the OVP as there is no control of any form with a bad OVP.

One might also be sure to have new, appropriate spark plugs. A verification of suitable availabe secondary voltage might be nice.