Won't Start (Starter bad?)

[ok89]

Here is the story.
Today at 3pm I backed my car into my drive way with about 1/8th of a tank of gas left. At 9:30pm I tried to start it with no luck. I proceeded to push the car onto the street because I heard that explorers can't start while facing downhill with little gas left. In the street I got it started. I filled the tank up with 87 octane Chevron Gas with techron. At the gas station I checked oil and trans fluid. Both ok. It took me two tries to start the X. I then drove home. Once home I tried starting the X in the garage. Well I can't start it. It makes a grinding noise when I try. I can get lights and radio and everything else so the battery is fine. My brother looked under the car while I was trying to start it and said that the starter was shaking when it made the grinding noise. This leads me to believe that it is a starter problem. I was wondering if anyone had any similiar situations. Tomorrow morning I am going to have the X towed to Ford and fixed. I have a nice big warranty I was wondering what causes this problem and how long will it take to fix. I don't like having to live without my X. Thank you

 

[Stephen S]

It could still be a battery problem man. The starter needs a lot more juice to roll ever than it takes to power the lights and the radio. Sounds like a bad battery to me. Try jumping it with another car or a battery charger, and I'm pretty sure you'll get it started. It could also be a faulty battery cable. I've read around here that the battery cables sometimes develop corrosion under the casing and cause trouble like you described, but I'll bet it's the battery.

 

[ok89]

If the battery werent good the starter wouldnt make noise would it?

 

[JDraper]

Do a search here on battery cable. There has been a history of them corroding internally. When this occurs, one of the symptoms is that everything works right (including lights) , but the vehicle won't start. Also, check your connections down at the starter and at the battery to make sure the cable didn't work itself loose.

 

[Stephen S]

Yes, the starter will still, make noise even if the battery is not good. It's just not getting enough power to spin, but it's tryint to, but can't. That's where the noise is coming from.

 

[ok89]

The X is currently at my local Ford dealer

 

[mattadams]

A brief explanation of "won't starts"
If the positive battery cable is corroded, typically the symptom is well, nothing. Nothing clicks, nothing spins, nothing starts... its just like a completely dead battery.
On the other hand, if you have a failing battery, the starter may try to click before to do its thing, but won't have the voltage required to actually start the car.

The failing battery would be y guess. Have you got a battery charger at home? If so, try and charge it to full juice and start it again. I once had a problem with mine where it seemed like the battery was constantly failing, I'd charge it all the way up, vehicle would start and run good, then I'd park it again for a week or so, and it would be dead again. I'd track it day to day, come to find out that something in the voltage regulator, which is on the alternator, was sucking juice and causing the battery to die when it wasn't being recharged regularly. It often di dhte same thing your talking about (click click click)

 

[JDraper]

Originally posted by mattadams
If the positive battery cable is corroded, typically the symptom is well, nothing. Nothing clicks, nothing spins, nothing starts... its just like a completely dead battery.

There is another type of positive cable failure where everything works except the starter. The corrosion can occur between the wire that goes to the starter and the terminal, but not between the terminal and the accessory wire (That's what happened to my '92). When that occurs, everything except the starter will work. When mine died, I replaced my starter 'cause the battery read good and the alternator was good. Put the starter in... Click, click, click. Oh S$%t!! Stuck with a starter I didn't need. Thankfully, Advance Auto took the starter back when I discovered the real culprit. You can test the cable easily by using an ohmmeter to look for high resistance. Test from the battery terminal to the end of each wire that leaves the terminal. Resistance should be less than 10 ohms (a new cable will be in the millihoms range). If it's above that, then the cable is probably the culprit. If not, start looking elsewhere.

 

[Jim Galloway]

I had the same exact problem last year.

I pulled the starter off and found that there were two bolts that were loose that held some element of the starter the the main starter motor (where the gears meet) which caused it to grind since the gears did not always contact. It would start everynow and then depending on if they would happent to be in position top catch.

I tightened the bolts (with an allen key i think) and never had a problem since.

 

[ok89]

I really wished I would have read all this before now. The X is sitting in the Ford parking lot as we speak. All these things i should check and I cant. Arghh

 

[Stephen S]

Be sure to fill us in on what they tell you the problem was. I hope they don't feed you a line and try to charge you crazy amounts of money to fix a simple problem. Good luck to you.

 

[ok89]

Its under warranty so I will only have to pay the $100 deductible. Maybe they will say the engine is bad and they will replace that under warranty

 

[Stephen S]

Yeah, warranties are nice. But it would be the luck that whatever went wrong wouldn't be covered for some reason. But if it was the battery, it'll likely cost less than $100 for the battery, and depending on how much they charge you for labor you may wind up paying it all anyway.

 

[ok89]

Note: There never was a clicking sound
The grinding sound i refer to was the exact same sound you get if you try to turn the car on when it is already on

 

[JDraper]

Originally posted by ok89
Note: There never was a clicking sound
The grinding sound i refer to was the exact same sound you get if you try to turn the car on when it is already on

That makes a difference! That points to either the starter being loose, or the bendix going bad in the starter.

 

[TerraBomb]

but , it also could be that the starterwheel n the crank is missing an few teeth , and that will give exact the same noise, however i haven't seen it happen alot ,but occasionally it does happen...

 

[ok89]

Yes you win something
You win the satisfaction of being right

 

[Stephen S]

Yes, the grinding sound may point to a completely different problem. As Jeff and Gimp said, a problem witht he starter bendix of the flywheel (hopefully just the starter).

I suppose it is all my fault, since I replied to the question first. I didn't make the connection that he meant a "grinding" sound as opposed to the common "clicking" sound of a dead battery. Sorry guys!! Didn't mean to cause so much confusion.

 

[ok89]

Today is wednesday. The time is 1:00 pm
I just received a call from ford saying that the starter is the problem. They are going to replace the starter under warranty. Now if it took them 2 and a half days just to look at it to figure out the problem how long will it take them to fix it?
They say today if they have the part in stock but what are the chances of that? Oh well thats what you get for taking your vehicle to the dealer

 

[ok89]

Well finally today Thursday at 11:30 they gave me my vehicle back They installed a remanufactured starter and it starts up great. But now I noticed a brand new problem When I turn the steering wheel at very low speeds or when I am not moving the whole car vibrates. Whats going on? Are the wheels gonna fall off? Am I going to need to take it back to the Dealer?