jnissen

Odd one here... Daughters car will start and crank just fine but in 1 out of 20-30 starts the starter will engage and barely crank the engine over. Like the battery is dead or dying. Happens cool or hot weather. Been doing this for about three months now.

I thought it could be a bad spot on the starter armature. Perhaps a single coil in the starter were shorted out and if it landed perfectly in that position it would do that. Anyway I had convinced myself that a new starter would fix this. I hopped in the car to move it the other night and it did this for me. I was able to hear the starter engage and it did slowly turn over. Well bad starter armature theory flew out the window! If the thing was turning and engaging it then sounded like a battery again.

I inspected all the connections, both at the battery, grounds, engine grounds, and stater. The battery connections were cleaned up about a year ago. I removed the positive lead and inspected it. Did not look bad at all. Put it back on and hope the problem does not come back. Anyone else see an issue like this? All connections appear to be good but still an intermittent cranking?

Forgot to add that right after the slow cranking I tried it a couple more times and the first try was also slow but the second time it started right up normally with a fast crank. I tested the battery at this point with a load tester. No load and the battery was 13 volts. With a load of 300A the voltage was 11.5V. The voltage recovered quickly after the load test. I think the battery is fine. I did see a little corrosion in the wire braid that is crimped into the main battery connection. Is there any type of fusable link or area up near the battery that is a known weak area? The wires were just a bit green but looks like the crimp area is tight and good.

ezone

What year car? Type? Mileage?


Intermittent engagement could be poor connections (loose terminal tension) or a flaky solenoid. A test light at the small wire of the starter should give a clue if the issue is inside the cabin or outside.

Slow spinning would probably be loss of available power or amperage to the starter motor.
Google for how to do voltage drop testing on the starter circuits, both on the hot side and the ground side.

jordan1794

Actually though...
My 2006 had weak starts from time to time, that slowly became more and more frequent, up until the starter went out after about 6 months.

Battery was fine and stuff.

I guess it could have been the solenoid though, so long as that gets replaced when they replace the starter.
(Was going to test the solenoid and then replace the starter myself but damn if it isn't hard to get to!)

After they replaced the starter everything was good.
I think it was like 400$? Labor, parts, and an $80 towing fee included Wrong!

EDIT: Found my post, it was 550$
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/1...ont-start.html