Starter "Failure"
04-28-2003, 12:57 PM
#1
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 2
Starter "Failure"
This is just a FYI to those of you who may experience something that I did last week. We live in Colorado and it is very dry typically all year round. Maybe 300 days of sunshine a year and very low humidity. A few weeks ago we began a very unusual (for us) rainy stretch topped by a couple of days two weeks ago of rain.
Last Monday I drove my '95 Maxima SE with 117,000 miles on it to work and home without incident. Monday was a day after several rainy days that was again hot and dry. Tuesday morning I went out to the car at about 0800 in the morning to go to work like every other day. The difference this day was that when I turned the key to start the car: nothing – nada - not even a click. It looked to me like the lights on the dash dimmed just a skosh but other than that zip. I assumed that I had a dead starter and resigned myself to replacing it on Saturday. I drove our other vehicle the rest of the week, trying every so often to see if my car might have magically fixed itself which it didn't.
Friday night, before starting the repairs I got onto the Internet to look at chat boards and such to see how to approach the diagnosis and got a bunch of good advice but based on the symptoms, it sure sounded to me like the starter was frozen.
Saturday morning I checked the battery voltage, it was good. I verified that the S terminal on the solenoid was getting power when the key was turned etc. and was just about to start tearing the air cleaner assembly out when a very old piece of advice occurred to me. Way back in my high school years I worked at gas station in the mountains here. We had a crusty old owner who always told us to smack the solenoid with a ball peen hammer or something before tearing it out to be sure it wasn't just stuck due to residue. Well, I poked around in the garage for something long and massive and I found a shelf bracket that looked about right. I tapped it pretty hard on the case of the solenoid and had my wife try the key one more time and sure enough the car fired right up. It's started now for 4 days without issue.
Hope this saves somebody else the $100s it saved me.
Regards,
rhschoon
Last Monday I drove my '95 Maxima SE with 117,000 miles on it to work and home without incident. Monday was a day after several rainy days that was again hot and dry. Tuesday morning I went out to the car at about 0800 in the morning to go to work like every other day. The difference this day was that when I turned the key to start the car: nothing – nada - not even a click. It looked to me like the lights on the dash dimmed just a skosh but other than that zip. I assumed that I had a dead starter and resigned myself to replacing it on Saturday. I drove our other vehicle the rest of the week, trying every so often to see if my car might have magically fixed itself which it didn't.
Friday night, before starting the repairs I got onto the Internet to look at chat boards and such to see how to approach the diagnosis and got a bunch of good advice but based on the symptoms, it sure sounded to me like the starter was frozen.
Saturday morning I checked the battery voltage, it was good. I verified that the S terminal on the solenoid was getting power when the key was turned etc. and was just about to start tearing the air cleaner assembly out when a very old piece of advice occurred to me. Way back in my high school years I worked at gas station in the mountains here. We had a crusty old owner who always told us to smack the solenoid with a ball peen hammer or something before tearing it out to be sure it wasn't just stuck due to residue. Well, I poked around in the garage for something long and massive and I found a shelf bracket that looked about right. I tapped it pretty hard on the case of the solenoid and had my wife try the key one more time and sure enough the car fired right up. It's started now for 4 days without issue.
Hope this saves somebody else the $100s it saved me.
Regards,
rhschoon
04-28-2003, 01:19 PM
#2
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 1,503
Re: Starter "Failure"
Originally posted by rhschoon
This is just a FYI to those of you who may experience something that I did last week. We live in Colorado and it is very dry typically all year round. Maybe 300 days of sunshine a year and very low humidity. A few weeks ago we began a very unusual (for us) rainy stretch topped by a couple of days two weeks ago of rain.
Last Monday I drove my '95 Maxima SE with 117,000 miles on it to work and home without incident. Monday was a day after several rainy days that was again hot and dry. Tuesday morning I went out to the car at about 0800 in the morning to go to work like every other day. The difference this day was that when I turned the key to start the car: nothing – nada - not even a click. It looked to me like the lights on the dash dimmed just a skosh but other than that zip. I assumed that I had a dead starter and resigned myself to replacing it on Saturday. I drove our other vehicle the rest of the week, trying every so often to see if my car might have magically fixed itself which it didn't.
Friday night, before starting the repairs I got onto the Internet to look at chat boards and such to see how to approach the diagnosis and got a bunch of good advice but based on the symptoms, it sure sounded to me like the starter was frozen.
Saturday morning I checked the battery voltage, it was good. I verified that the S terminal on the solenoid was getting power when the key was turned etc. and was just about to start tearing the air cleaner assembly out when a very old piece of advice occurred to me. Way back in my high school years I worked at gas station in the mountains here. We had a crusty old owner who always told us to smack the solenoid with a ball peen hammer or something before tearing it out to be sure it wasn't just stuck due to residue. Well, I poked around in the garage for something long and massive and I found a shelf bracket that looked about right. I tapped it pretty hard on the case of the solenoid and had my wife try the key one more time and sure enough the car fired right up. It's started now for 4 days without issue.
Hope this saves somebody else the $100s it saved me.
Regards,
rhschoon
This is just a FYI to those of you who may experience something that I did last week. We live in Colorado and it is very dry typically all year round. Maybe 300 days of sunshine a year and very low humidity. A few weeks ago we began a very unusual (for us) rainy stretch topped by a couple of days two weeks ago of rain.
Last Monday I drove my '95 Maxima SE with 117,000 miles on it to work and home without incident. Monday was a day after several rainy days that was again hot and dry. Tuesday morning I went out to the car at about 0800 in the morning to go to work like every other day. The difference this day was that when I turned the key to start the car: nothing – nada - not even a click. It looked to me like the lights on the dash dimmed just a skosh but other than that zip. I assumed that I had a dead starter and resigned myself to replacing it on Saturday. I drove our other vehicle the rest of the week, trying every so often to see if my car might have magically fixed itself which it didn't.
Friday night, before starting the repairs I got onto the Internet to look at chat boards and such to see how to approach the diagnosis and got a bunch of good advice but based on the symptoms, it sure sounded to me like the starter was frozen.
Saturday morning I checked the battery voltage, it was good. I verified that the S terminal on the solenoid was getting power when the key was turned etc. and was just about to start tearing the air cleaner assembly out when a very old piece of advice occurred to me. Way back in my high school years I worked at gas station in the mountains here. We had a crusty old owner who always told us to smack the solenoid with a ball peen hammer or something before tearing it out to be sure it wasn't just stuck due to residue. Well, I poked around in the garage for something long and massive and I found a shelf bracket that looked about right. I tapped it pretty hard on the case of the solenoid and had my wife try the key one more time and sure enough the car fired right up. It's started now for 4 days without issue.
Hope this saves somebody else the $100s it saved me.
Regards,
rhschoon
it will fail again soon enough ;-)
I had the same problem the first day i owned my used car...
I got so friggin ****ed because i though the previous owner tricked me into buying a piece of crap car... Turns out he was just lucky to never get this problem...
My starter had to be hit for it to start... I did that for like a week before i got it fixed.
Turned out the starter simply needed new metal pieces that touch the spinning motor... cost me like 60CDN dollars...
goto a starter specialist.... one that looks like they've been around forever. They'll fix it in like 30 minutes.
in my case he took it apart, all of it. he replaced the metal piece and lubed my whole starter back up.
04-28-2003, 03:16 PM
#3
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 2
Re: Re: Starter "Failure"
We'll have to wait and see. Mine was a one time deal. I haven't had to do any more smacking since the initial two or three hits last Saturday. It's started without issue at least a dozen times since I whacked it last...
07-27-2003, 08:12 PM
#5
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 172
$100 for a starter!!! I had to hunt around to find a rebuild for $175. dealer wanted $250 not installed!!! i had my car 2 weeks before it went, it was the throwout bering though so that wouldnt have worked 
to bad. hope it all works out
to bad. hope it all works out
07-28-2003, 03:43 PM
#6
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 8
Thanks for everybodies help, I pulled the starter tonight in about 15 minutes. That one big bolt was tight but once it "cracked" it came out with my fingers. Gotta love that.
It's in the shop right now getting rebuilt. I'll let you know what they charged me tomorrow. I think they wanted $240 for a rebuilt one. I'm hoping it'll be less than $100.
It's a Hitachi
It's in the shop right now getting rebuilt. I'll let you know what they charged me tomorrow. I think they wanted $240 for a rebuilt one. I'm hoping it'll be less than $100.
It's a Hitachi
07-29-2003, 05:00 PM
#8
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 8
Well I got the starter done. First class job. Looks like brand new. He says he rebuilt it completely including drive gears, solenoid and motor.
$120.
Put it in..... problem still there.
Now before I decided the starter was bad, I played with the ignition switch. No difference.
Well after installing the new starter and still not working (intermittant), I played with the switch again. This time I could make it start at will by pushing in the key/switch. Oh well.
Looks like I can replace the electrical part by just pulling two little screws. Anybody do this before?
$120.
Put it in..... problem still there.
Now before I decided the starter was bad, I played with the ignition switch. No difference.
Well after installing the new starter and still not working (intermittant), I played with the switch again. This time I could make it start at will by pushing in the key/switch. Oh well.
Looks like I can replace the electrical part by just pulling two little screws. Anybody do this before?
07-30-2003, 07:51 AM
#9
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 8
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