When I start the car in the morning (cold weather), I get a bit of grinding noise. I did the search and I believe all I need to do is grease it up? How long can go with this grinding noise every morning/cold starts? Will it do further damage to the starter?

Thanks for the replies....

 

Your research was correct about the grease. You could potentially go a year before the starter fails outright, but the longer you go with the noise, the shorter your starters life gets. Would you operate the car with 1 qt. of oil? It can be done, but you'll kill the engine faster. That's kind of an extreme example, but it's along the same lines.

 

i let my starter do that for like 3 months until it would BARELY start the car, but i've pnly had the car for 7 months so it may've already had that problem.