Hello there,

I have a 1996 maxima which has been giving problems starting lately. At first it was intermittent and after a few tries, it would start. when you turn the key, the lights come on but when you go to start it , it just clicks and nothing. At first if you did this a few times and waited a few minutes in between tries, it would eventually start. Now it doesn't seem to start unless I jump it and even then it still gives trouble.

A trip to advanced auto for a test indicated that the battery was good, the starter was good and there was excessive ripple in the alternator. When the car is able to be started, it runs fine until it's turned off. If the alternator was bad, wouldn't it die while running? That's been my previous experience with a bad alternator. Any advice or help you give would be greatly appreciated.

Full Disclosure- My wife had a co-worker use the car for a jump a few weeks ago and according to her, he put the cables on wrong. I assume that means reversed them. Since there were no immediate issues, I didn't make too much of a fuss. But it seems like now the issues are starting to appear and I'm sure it's no coincidence.

Thank you

 

Check my thread, I had similar starting issue like you: http://forums.maxima.org/4th-generat...gle-click.html

 

The 4th Gen starters don't always die all at once. I have a used oem if you want to figure out the shipping cost, i wont charge you much for the starter. They are not hard to take out or install.

 

thanks for the quick reply. I'm going to go over your thread and see the steps and advice given. But with regards to my situation, considering the jumper cable issue mentioned in my first post, is there something or somewhere I should look for first?

 

The solenoid of the starter could be ok and the brushes starting to go and it might test out as a good starter, but, in my experience this is the time to replace it. You can hit it with a hammer a time or 2 and it might roll forward and catch, but if that is what's happening, its one its way out and its cheaper to just get a whole starter than mess around with a partial fix. You might need to sleeve a pipe over your breaker bar or ratchet to loosen the 2 main bolts, but other than that its in a pretty slick place to get at once you pull out the air intake.

 

well, after thinking it had to be starter related, i went to check it out and found a nut loose. now it's starting. hopefully that's all it was.

 

if your talking about the nut that secures the positive feed to the starter, that is a direct line from the battery and can do a lot of damage if it comes in contact with something it's not supposed to. Should be a little rubber boot around it. The starter ground is a plug-in, not so worrisome. Hopefully, that's all it was.

 

Cool, so it is a bad connection issue after all.