2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT 3.0…Car won’t start, Turns over very slow, then stops and clicks. After a few tries we get smoke and burnt smell coming from area where starter is found. I had the battery checked, it checked out bad, replaced the battery, still no start. Had the alternator tested, it tested ok, still no start. Took the starter out and had it tested, it tested ok, still no start. Checked battery cable connections, a little corrosion, not bad. Cleaned that up, same thing. No start. I feel that it’s an issue with the starter. Could a starter test ok, and still be bad?? Or does anyone have any other ideas on what to check or try??
Not very likely the starter is bad although the test isn’t usually under any load so there is a small possibility
More likely you have a bad connection somewhere made worse by the burning smell. Check all the grounds. The battery ground being the first thing you check. The ground from the engine to the chassis is next. Chase the battery cable until it reaches the starter and check for burns and corrosion. A little resistance cause by corrosion becomes a big drain when a couple hundred amps runs through it.
Good Luck!
Have you tried turning the engine over by hand at the crank bolt, to see if it rotates freely?
Tester
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It depends on how they tested it. If they just put it on a bench and tested it by applying voltage with no load it could appear to be good. The fact that you saw smoke coming from it tells me it’s toast. But try testers suggestion first.
I will check grounds and look for breaks or corrosion. This is what a coworker told me also.
No, trying not to have to take the engine apart if possible. I don’t see the crank bolt as easily accessible.
Remove the front tire on the same side as the front of the engine.
There’s usually an access hole to get at the crank bolt.
Tester
Ok, I got to the crank shaft. It does turn. It’s not in a place that I can get much leverage, but with some strength, it does turn.
The battery ground may be corroded at the engine or body connection.
Burning odor and smoke indicates a high resistance connection in the starter motor circuit or starter motor itself. “High resistance” means on the order of 0.01 ohm, so the resistance doesn’t need to be very high in that circuit to become a problem, due to the 100+ amps the starter motor draws. There’s at least a half dozen places where the electrical connections could be bad. Rather than going through them one by one, and you’ve already verified the battery and battery connections are good, it is usually faster to use a volt meter to measure the voltage at the two starter motor terminals during attempted cranking. Measure from terminal to starter motor case. If both measure 10.5 volts or more, and it doesn’t crank robustly, replace the starter motor. If either or both measure less than 10.5 volts during attempted cranking, works backwards towards the battery to find out why.
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So I checked the volts to the starter, it’s just fine. Ground is fine. I tried to crank the engine to show my father what it was doing and the car started right up… WTF! The only thing that I had done since last attempt at start was turn the crank bolt. Could we have a dead spot in the starter? My father suggested we might have a problem with flex plate. I didn’t think that would be a problem because prior start attempts the starter was not turning. Thoughts?
just a suggestion if you go with a starter, might wanna check the price on the internet
I just replaced one in my truck and it was a hundred less then autozone
from a place called db electrical (online)
shipping was free and it came in like 3 days, perfect condition, new not rebuilt…
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Good tip! I ordered from db. It was cheaper than RockAuto, and less than half the price at the local parts store. For that kind of savings I will wait 3 days to get it.
it’s possibly (though unlikely,) that the starter was hitting the ring gear in just the right spot as to not engage, but instead get stuck. This would cause a no start, and high resistance on your starter. You turning the crank bolt would turn the engine a bit, allowing the starter to now be able to engage., I’ve seen it before, but not very often.
I would start with replacing the starter, checking all the wires for cleanliness and tightness, and hope for the best. If it happens again, you may have to dig deeper into the flywheel/ring gear area.
Yes. Dear Internet, sometimes starters go bad.
My problem was with my 2008 Civic. It started out as a weak start, sometimes starting with no problem, sometimes acting sluggish. It progressively got worse and more erratic until all it would do is click when I tried to start it. (About six months to a year from the first symptom)
I changed the battery, ground wire, nothing seemed to fix it. So I took out the starter (Do not attempt this on a late model Civic, just take it to the dealer. trust me.) and took it to the parts store to test on their fancy bench test computer. The test said the starter was fine, but the observant guy at the parts store (which will remain nameless, but it was a place like Advanced Auto) noticed that the bendix was not fully engaging, it would only come out about a quarter of an inch. He also noted that the tests are not always accurate because it does not test it under load. When he put the new starter on the machine you could see the bendix fully engaging.
Anyways, I took the new starter and installed it. The car now starts perfectly. Bad starter.
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Well, the observant guy at the parts store is correct about bench tests not being accurate.
Um… didn’t you remove the starter for testing and reinstall it? Perhaps the installation was the problem? Was anything loose when you removed it?
So, the guy observed the Bendix not fully engaging, but your last words were it was engaging when testing? What was it?
Sorry for the confusion. The moral of the story is that a bad starter can test good.
The old/bad starter: I took it in to the parts store, he hooked it up to the computer machine and it said it was a good starter. The bendix looked like it was only engaging about 1/4 of an inch.
The new starter: Hooked up to the machine, also tested good (obviously) and the bendix was observed FULLY engaging.
Hello all!
I created an account just to post my experience with my car’s starter so anyone who decides to do a future search for the same issue can have an idea what steps they can take to figure out which part of the starting system is not working right!
Let’s start with the issue on my particular car…a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis.
Car was starting up just fine everyday until one day I went to start it and just clicked. I knew the battery must have drained overnight somehow so I thought I had a parasitic drain somewhere in my car but when I checked, it was just drawing around 20mV (well under average draw of 50mV) so I ruled that out and since my battery was 7 years old, I assumed that the battery just gave up.
I purchased another battery, replaced it and my car started BUT…I did noticed that the first two or three cranks were very slow and after that, starter was cranking normally and started the car right away. The same thing happened every time I started the car, slow cranking at first and then normal cranking speed and start up right away.
That went on for about two weeks or so until I finally started having issues starting the car again. Sometimes when I turned the key, I only got a single click and then nothing else, no crank, no start. Some other times, after I turned the key, it would take a full second for the starter to start cranking the engine and then start the car as usual. And some other times it would start the car right up!
This was the pattern for a few more days until I just couldn’t start the car AT ALL! Turned the key, single click and no crank, no start!
Ok…time to check every component of the starting system to see what went bad!
First…I did the simplest things to do. Just tap softly on the starter with a hammer or something somewhat heavy while you try to crank the starter and see if that gets it going. It did not.
OK…maybe the flywheel ended up in a position where the starter can’t catch it and therefore unable to crank the engine. The solution…simply turn the crankshaft pulley with a breaker bar and the appropriate socket a little bit to turn the flywheel enough for the starter to catch it and start the engine up. (This method will also let you know if your engine is seized up or not and a reason why your starter would not be able to start your engine) I was able to turn the flywheel and then tried to start the car…still one click, no crank, no start! No flywheel issues!
OK…next thing…check your battery voltage. Without any load on it, it should read around 12.6V or so when it is fully charged. If that checks out, next…measure the voltage on the battery while trying to start the car (doesn’t matter if the engine cranks or not, the load will still be there) the voltage should not go below 10V. If it does go below 10V, then your battery charge is low and therefore won’t be able to crank your engine. Have it recharged and try again with a full charge. If the starter still doesn’t crank the engine, now you know your battery is not the culprit!. (In my case my battery was brand new so I knew that was not the issue. I was reading around 11V with a cranking load)
Next step…check resistance on battery cables with voltage drop WHILE there is a load on the cable. Set your DMM on DC Volts and connect one lead to the positive battery terminal and your other lead to the other side of the positive battery cable that goes down to your starter and connects to your starter solenoid. (It doesn’t matter what lead you use on either side as you’re only looking to see the voltage difference between leads) (Not all starters have the solenoid mounted on the starter itself so just follow the thicker positive cable from the battery until it reaches the solenoid) Try cranking the engine for about 10-15 seconds and read the voltage on the meter. Any reading below 0.5V is acceptable on most cars but please check on your particular model. If you get a reading of more than 0.5V, then your cable is bad and needs to be replaced as it has way too much resistance for the current to flow properly to the starter. If the positive cable checked out okay now test the negative cable. Connect one lead of the DMM to the negative battery terminal and the other lead to the starter body. Crank engine for 10-15 seconds and check voltage. Same…if above 0.5V reading, the cable is bad and needs to be replaced. (NOTE: If your starter is actually cranking the engine but you just want to check your cables, you need to disable either your fuel pump or the ignition system to prevent the starter from starting the engine) (Also…allow the starter to cool off for a couple of minutes between cranking attempts or you could literally fry the solenoid)
In my case, both the positive and the negative cables checked out okay so the cables were not the issue either.
Bad ignition switch?..You can check this easily with your jumper cables or a remote starter.
Keep the ignition switch in the off position - Just connect one end of the positive jumper cable to the positive battery terminal and with the other positive end of the jumper cable briefly touch the smaller bolt on the starter solenoid to activate the starter. Do the same thing with the remote starter with the only difference that you actually connect the alligator clip to the solenoid smaller bolt and press the button on the remote to activate the starter.
If the starter now cranks the engine, there is a problem in the wiring from the ignition switch to the starter solenoid.
In my case, I still had just one click, no crank, no start! Ruled out ignition switch as a culprit as well!
If you went through all these steps and still couldn’t find the problem, then there is only one thing left that can be wrong…THE STARTER!
I should mention that this starter had only been on this car for 4 years (I replaced the original one after the bare wire going from the solenoid to the motor corroded so bad that couldn’t flow current properly anymore and therefore couldn’t crank the engine. (Why is it bare anyway to begin with? Especially anywhere that roads get salted for winter! UGH!)
I honestly thought that the last thing that could be wrong would be the starter so before I took it out I checked this bare wire and it was still looking pretty good after 4 winters. But I wanted to be 100% sure whether the starter was the issue or not so I took it out and before having it tested at the auto parts store where I bought it from, I bench tested myself and sure enough…it was still doing the one click, no spin.
The one click was just from the gear coming out to meet the flywheel but there was no spinning whatsoever. YES! Found the problem! Bad starter!! But why did it fail after only 4 years of use? I wondered…
To be double sure lol I still took it to have it tested with their machine and guess what guys??? The same starter that wouldn’t work for me is now working for them every single time they start it…HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!
They said it’s working like it should so there must be something else wrong with the starting system in my car. I was puzzled!!.. I was pretty sure the problem was the starter!
I brought it back home and bench tested it again and guess what??? YES!!! You got it! It went back to doing the same thing it was doing before, just coming out but no spinning. Now I started to believe that maybe the battery was bad after all and just didn’t have enough juice to crank the engine.
I wanted to be sure about the battery as well so I took it out of the car and took it with me along with the starter and the proof of purchase for the starter as it had a limited lifetime warranty on it.
Got to the store and they tested the battery and passed the test perfectly! (I wasn’t surprised…it is an almost brand new battery)
I asked them to just give me a new starter with the warranty I had on the old one and they did. I asked them if they could test both starters to see if I could see any differences and they did…
RESULTS…New starter was coming out smoothly and spinning fast as it should since it’s new.
Old starter wasn’t as smooth coming out and I also noticed that it wasn’t spinning as fast as the new one BUT it was working nonetheless! (Still puzzled about it)
I grabbed the new starter, the battery and came back home. Installed the battery back in the car and then I proceeded to bench test the new starter and guess what???..It was doing what it is supposed to do…coming out and spinning fast!
Got under the car, put it back on the engine, got on the driver seat, turned that key to start and the engine started right away like it normally does!
PROBLEM SOLVED!!! The starter was what failed in my car’s starting system!
But wait a minute…how come the bad starter did work on their bench but not on my car, even with no load on it? The only thing I can think of is that their machine must be sending higher Amps to the starter than what my car’s battery is capable of. They use AC for testing instead of DC, don’t they? If so, maybe they should change that so they can test starters with a much more accurate “real life” situation!
And finally…I am sorry for the loooooong post but I really wanted to be through with explaining things and how even people that are not experienced on working on cars can still diagnose starting problem easily and safely.
So…to answer your question that if a car’s starter could be bad after testing OK, the answer is YES!! 100%
It can be bench tested, pass the test and still be a bad starter!
That also reminds me that a bad starter can possibly also drain your battery. I’m pretty sure that’s how my battery was drained. Not sure how exactly it happened but it was all related.
If your battery is draining overnight and you show no parasitic drain, check your starter. That may be what’s causing it.