My battery drained itself this weekend (car had sat for 3 weeks). My cousin came by to borrow it and kept cranking the damn thing (6-7 times). He told me it made different grinding noises, all heinous.

I know it's bad to grind the teeth inside will it zap a lot of life out of the starter by grinding it 6-7 times consecutively? I read our starters are pretty weak. A member recommended a rebuild, is it necessary? I've been looking at the 10 tooth models on EBay.

Also, it's running again today. Starter sounds fine. No unusual noises. I took it out for a long highway drive. It idles at around 500 now in D. I can't remember but the idle does need to relearn itself after having the battery dead, right?

 

ttt anyone.............

 

was any lights on?? door, trunk, etc.

 

starters on any car are not meant for continous use, so if a car constantly has to be cranked and cranked, it will fail. if the car is starting no problem right now with a fully charged battery, i wouldn't worry about it. maybe all the sounds were because the starter was not working at normal speed.

as for the idle, this is the first i ever have heard of that. hopefully someone with more experience can give us an answer on that.

 

If all is fine now, keep an eye out, adjust idle to proper spec, and observe for the next few days to make sure nothing irregular is happening.

 

First time he cranked it was a complete grind. All the other times he said it sounded like a combination of spinning and grinding.

I found a link on how to set the idle. Might try that out if it still idles low. Some threads mentioned how you shouldn't floor the car when driving around to re-generate the battery. I did that alot. Need the car to drive clients around otherwise I would've left it until holidays next month.