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I live in Canada where it gets ass-freezing cold in winter (as low as -40). We have block heaters installed in most vehicles but sometimes you can't plug the vehicle in (e.g. if you're at a meter on the street). I've consistently noticed that the cold threshold for starting is lower for U.S-made vehicles, usually ranging from -25 to -35 F. And I'm usually not a fan of American vehicles. My Nissan Altima won't start below -18 F, and my Toyota Tundra won't start below 0 F! My friend has a Ford F-150 and it always starts like a dream, no matter how cold it is.
It depends more on your battery and viscosity of oil, than the make or model of the vehicle. However, there are some vehicles that do have a tiny starter. The starter on older Saturns looks like a garden tractor starter.
I would check your battery's s real world cold cranking amps, alternator capacity, and engine oil viscosity. Those factors probably make more difference than the make of the vehicle. Below about -15° F. to -25° F., almost no vehicle will start reliably without a block heater. I know--I spent some years living where winter nighttime temperatures regularly dropped into the -25° F. to -45° F. range, with daytime highs often below 0° F.
An opposite problem is cars having things fail in very high temperature areas like Arizona where it can be 120 F. Common for cars to overheat in the summer there.
The problem is vehicle manufacturers don't design/test their vehicles in these extreme temperature areas. Or their testing is minimal.
I've found German vehicles to be the most reliable in cold start conditions... They test their models in very cold conditions, and usually have somewhat oversized batteries for the size of the engine in their cars. I replaced a battery in my Cayenne not too long ago, and it was the biggest and heaviest battery I've ever had in a car, CCA rating was insanely high.
I am not convinced that battery power and oil viscosity are the entire cause. I've had cars whose batteries delivered plenty of spin power and speed to the cranking, but would never fire in cold temperatures. Just crank and crank and crank.
I had a '64 Volvo in Canada, with a manual choke. I had to pull the choke out after shutting it off at the end of the day, because at -30 I was afraid pulling the choke out in the morning would break the knob off. The first try to start it would yield a "rrr" sound at about two-second intervals. Not promising. The interval would gradually shorten, and after about a dozen rrr's, they would get longer and fill in the intervening spaces. At that point I would hear the engine hiccup slightly, as it was finally firing. Three or four little coughs, and I'd get two of them in quick succession, and it might begin to run on one cylinder, then another one would start to fire, and then it would continue to run. It never failed to start, even though it was cranking very, very slowly.
I attribute this not so much to the cranking power of the battery, but to the fuel mix I was able to generate with the manual choke, and the integrity of my spark plug and coil wiring, which was successfully distributing enough spark without leaking any through the insulation. Very cold weather would contract the insulation of the plug wiring, magnifying the size of any breaches, enabling much or all of the spark to jump out along the way to any other suitable conductor on the engine block.
As for the OP's question, it is possible that cars differ in the range of fuel mixtures that are within the scope of the electronic settings. At -30, there may be some cars that will not provide the correct ignition mix, no matter how many hours you spin the engine at high rpms. Or, as I believe was long the case with carbureted British cars, the miles of Lucas wiring in there made it unlikely that much spark would reach the plugs even in the best of times.
In high compression Japanese engines? With tight clearances? As I do not know anything sloppier than infamous GM engines with piston slap.
I'd rather - based on similar experiences from my old country, where it easily went 40 below C for 2-3 months and Russian cars were pain to start - it's too much fuel pumped into cc-s. Flooding plugs. OP, next time, try starting your Nissan or Toyoda like as if they were flooded - full throttle all the way down to the floor and hold, till she catches.
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