Periodically when starting, I hear clicks. The battery was checked-ok. It is a 6yr batt.-18 mo. old. Is it the battery or a starter problem?
It might be neither. If you run a lot of accessories and drive at low speed, in city traffic or at idle a lot, you may not be getting enough charge back into the battery. You might be having alternator problems too, but you should get a light for that.
It could be either or as keith suggested neither. One easy thing that most people can do themselves is to remove and clean both ends of each battery cable.
Keith, this is his son. I have disconnected the terminals (battery under back seat) and everything is very clean, all look brand new. Still have problem. What is causing the battery not to charge? I had a mechanic put a load tester on the battery and it check out ok. Thoughts?
Thanks for the help.
Have the charging system also tested.
One question I have that Keith alluded to, and that’s the car’s driving environment. If it’s all very short trips to the corner store and back the battery may not be getting charged fully.
There is another possibility, and that’s that the starter assembly itself is going bad. When you turn the key, a solenoid energizes and activates an assembly in the starter that slides the starter gear into engagement with the flywheel and engages the electrical contacts that complete the starter motor circuit. If the electrical contacts in the assembly are fried from use, they can intermittantly not complete the circuit for the motor and, in those cases, all you hear is the click of the solenoid activating.
The way to check this is to verify that when the key has been turned the starter assembly has 12VDC to it. Sometimes you can even tap the starter assembly with a wrench when it’s acting up and cause the fried contacts to nake the circuit just from the shock wave of the tap.