This morning my wife went to start her Mazda 3 and it failed...so she took the Protege 5 to work this morning.

I went out and gave it a shot. The engine sounded like it was turning but wasn't catching. I gave it another shot and it started after about 10 seconds of trying and pumping a little gas (not sure if that helped it). I drove it around the neigborhood 10 minutes and parked it. After that I had breakfast and tried again, this time it started right up.

The car has 65k miles. My wife gets the oil changed exactly on schedule but she does not recall getting a "tune-up". The battery is 3 months old.

What do you guys think? The past 3 months she said that it takes a little longer than normal to start. I am thinking maybe new spark plugs are needed.