Yay! Finally, the vehicle won't start at all... rather than being intermittent. New starter or cables needed, likely. Has been spotty for months, but neither I nor my mechanic had been able to diagnose it since it was so intermittent. Intermittent car problems are worse than car problems. #carrepair
@ai6yr
As long as the battery has been load tested and determined sound, things get interesting fast. Maybe you've already checked but battery cable corrosion is suspect on either end of the cables. Bad grounds are in league with trumpism.
@trumpresistance Will see what the mechanic finds, battery cables are likely due soon, yes. 1999... have a 1993 Toyota Truck which had some serious battery cable corrosion, familiar with that issue... old age things!
I did, in fact, need a new starter. It's only 25 years old!! Letting the mechanic also figure out which bearing or pulley is squealing. ps. replacing a starter is only two electrical connections and two screws, plus (likely) replaced plastic clips for the electrical in the vicinity... plus a bunch of scraped knuckles. I did not have time to do it myself, so am paying the (trusted) mechanic.
@ai6yr One time I had a bad starter motor & barely got the car to start, so I drove it to Kragen's and removed the starter motor in their parking lot. Got a rebuilt. Installed it. Spun the wrong way. Took it out. Got another. Installed it. Spun the wrong way. Took it out. Stood with the clerk testing starter motors. Bad batch from rebuilders. Had one good one. Installed it. Worked fine. Finally stopped cursing.
@steter@ai6yr You’re lucky! Last starter I had to replace for intermittent issues, the replacement somehow broke the teeth off my flex plate in one spot making for an even more involved repair.
@steter@ai6yr@rcpierce You're all whiners. The power steering pump went out on my 2000 Tahoe and I didn't feel like I was up to pulling the fan (which is required) and I had just met a mobile mechanic so I hired him. Turns out he's just learning so he brought in his friend to guide him, and when they pulled the fan it broke so they had to go to the junkyard for a new one and then they got busy and two weeks later when they finally came back the new pump didn't work. Finally took it to a real shop and the second pump also was a dud and in the end I paid the first guys $100 and the second guys nearly $600 because they included 8 million surcharges.
I got 5 bad alternators in a row from autozone a few years back. They still refused to refund my $$ just get another replacement. I finally resorted to picketing in front of the store. That got me the phone number for the regional manager. I agreed to try one more IF she would send it to a store with a tester and if it tested bad out of the box I’d just get my $$ back.
Sure enough, the 6th one was bad out of the box too. Got my money, went to OReilleys and got one that was good on the first try. lol
Swapping an alternator is pretty easy as far as diy repairs go. But it still takes time and crawling under the car and messing with hard to reach stuff. Getting bad parts sucks. Getting them repeatedly is a nightmare.
@exador23@ai6yr@steter@rcpierce on my old 22re equipped 4Runner, I ended up getting a used genuine oem starter off of a wrecked truck. It worked great compared to all the rebuilt crap that I got from the parts stores.
You can rebuild a lot of the Asin starters that Toyota used for decades by yourself.
Roger Brown of 4crawler has lots of good info on rebuilding them and sells the usually needed components.
That’s why we warn all the new people in the festiva group not to ‘fire the parts cannon’ when you have a problem. Diagnose first. And don’t rule out a part just because you replaced it with new.
@exador23@ai6yr@steter@rcpierce after summiting Mt Adams, I was driving down from the trailhead and noticed that the battery indicator seemed lower than usual... And kept dropping. I turned off all auxillary electronics and discovered that when in neutral the battery would get a slight float charge. I coasted down the mountain and managed to make it across the bridge back to Oregon and beelined it to the AutoZone. I pulled into a parking spot up front and the car died.
@exador23@ai6yr@steter@rcpierce the staff were super helpful and gave me loaner tools. Started with replacing the belt, then the battery (it was about due anyway), and finally the alternator. That fixed it. AutoZone staff even let me wash up with their orange stuff in the staff bathroom. After being up since 11pm the night before, I was finally on my way home.
@tsherrygeo@exador23@ai6yr@steter@rcpierce I had something similar happen many years ago. I was driving my F250 in Eastern Nebraska sometime well after midnight when the voltage dropped and everything started to dim. My first thought was oh shit I need an alternator and I'm 50 miles from anywhere. I made it to an O'Reilly's in Lincoln just as the truck died. I slept in the cab until they opened and then replaced the alternator, eventually making it to Wyoming later that day.
@bud_t@tsherrygeo@exador23@ai6yr@steter@rcpierce I replaced a rear wheel bearing on our old 4runner in a gas station parking lot in Big Water, Utah on Thanksgiving weekend a few years back. Also had to rebuild the brake on that side.
The few people who winter over in Big Water helped me out by taking me into Page, AZ to get parts and taking me to a Navajo Trucking maintenance depot that had a 50 ton press to get the bearing off and on.
It took several days. We camped in the parking lot 😅
My then girlfriend and now wife was incredibly patient with the situation.
I figured it would save us several days if I did the work myself (the folks in the area helped out, too. And they were a big help) versus getting a tow truck and waiting in Page, AZ for mechanics to open on Monday and parts to show up a day or two later.
We both had to get back to work so time was of the essence.
once had an axle break on me on an offramp from the Interstate. Thank goodness it wasn't on the Interstate (which I was driving about once a week) doing 65mph/100kmph!
@ai6yr Currently my kit car starts reliably when it cranks, but sometimes it cranks on the first turn of the key and sometimes you have to turn the key about ten times before it cranks. Intermittent problems are the worst.
@david@ai6yr I once drove a ‘71 Mercury that had an axe handle as a reserve starter motor starter - until the starter completely failed and I had to replace it one night in the UC Irvine Physical Sciences parking lot.
@quartzcity@david LOL the new fact I have learned this week is "whack the starter with something" appears to be a legitimate, widespread auto repair technique.
@ai6yr@quartzcity@david Just like whacking the door when the power window won't move. There are still a few systems in modern cars that are made of actual moving parts that can get stuck.
@W6KME@ai6yr@quartzcity@david in some cases, wracking the starter makes it work because it helps contact be made in the motor between the brushes and the motor windings.
I once had an auto parts store starter on a Toyota (only get OEM -- lesson learned) that would have issues with slow starting if the ambient temp was above about 80f. That really sucked on hot days. I bypassed everything but the starter hoping it was some other component on a long hot drive across the country.
The Fonzie Fix can save you from being stranded. But it’s not a repair per se. Just buys you a time to replace or rebuild it. Eventually the brushes will be too far gone.
But, yeah… there was a guy at one of our gatherings with a big RV that wouldn’t start. After making sure the battery was good we told him to crawl under it and whack the starter. We had other duties to attend to.
Next thing we know, he’s called a tow truck. (Very expensive to get a tow off the mountain). The tow truck driver crawls under it, Fonzies the starter and fires it right up.
@ai6yr@quartzcity@david
This is a well known technique for a lot of technology. 50 years ago I worked in a university TV studio and the staff engineers were always whacking things. In general, if that didn’t work, the recommendation was, get a bigger hammer.
@garthc In suspect a bad ground, but could be. Starter doesn't even try. Plenty of battery (new actually, I originally thought it was a battery problem).
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