i have searched and not found anything close to my issue. i am getting a no start condition, irregularly. 3 times in the last week i have had a situation where it wouldn't even turn over, so i inspect everything for loose connections and/or burnt wires etc, and nothing found. so i pull the motor fuse for 15 mins... plug it back in and the car starts right up every time. i have swapped ecu's with an extra i had, to no avail. i would assume this issue to be a coil or cam/crank sensor but i thought that once they were dead, they were dead... and not be able to reset the computer and start right back up. has anyone else had something similar to this before? i did not see anything like this in my search. let me know fellas... i need this shit fixed now!

everything else comes on when you put the key in, just no crank?

so strange that this is a new topic, because i logged in tonight to post about the very same thing...

i replaced the battery and the ground wire to it, i even tried swapping starters, to no avail. my car is now doing the same thing...sometimes it starts up, other times it wont even attempt to turn over, but the battery still reads 12+ volts, and all the accessories work. the only way to get the car to start is to attach it to another battery with jumper cables...

any idea wtf is going on with that?

Here's how to diagnose this. I'll assume that when it happens, usually the car is hot and has just been parked; you came off the freeway, stopped at the store for some smokes, and then were stranded.

Look at your starter harness. There are two wires - a big fat black/ red stripe one that comes right off the battery, and a small black (Yellow? blue? Whatever) wire that goes to the solenoid. That little wire runs to a spade connector a few inches away from the starter. The next time you find yourself stuck, turn the key to ON, unplug that spade connector, and use a jumper wire (because we always have some wire in the car.. with your tools.. right?) and jump the solinoid wire straight to the positive battery terminal. Holy crap, my starter just engaged and my car just started and if i remembered to leave it in neutral with the parking brake set, I didn't just run myself over. yay, let's go where ever we were going.

If the above works, you have the age-old *no start of unknown origin*! We've tracked it as far as an ignition switch problem but no further, as no one seems willing to rekey the car to see if it goes away. What did I do? I wired a pushbutton to the column to start the car for when the key wouldn't. It goes from the battery to a 15A fuse, to a normally open momentary button I bought at radioshack, to the starter solenoid wire. If the key won't start it, the button does, every time.

Beats carrying a 14" piece of wire with a spade connector on it everywhere you go...

thanks dino...that's about the only trick i hadn't tried yet. i've been shocking the starter by bridging the positive and negative terminals, which sometimes gave it the kick in the ass it needed to get motivated.

other times, i'd just jump it off someone else's car...which brings me to my next point...

i read another thread last night that i found that mentioned the same thing, and someone said that attaching the battery to another battery with jumper cables have the starter enough cranking amps to get it moving, which indicates that the starter was going bad and needed more than just the normal 12v from one battery to get started. and yes, this problem happens most often on times when i have driven the car more recently...however it started a few times right after having turned the car off (i.e. when the car stalls), but other times it will not start after having sat for 8 hours.

i have an extra starter lying around that i guess i'll throw in there and see if that solves the problem...that is, if your easier solution doesn't do the trick

thanks again

EDIT: Worked like a charm, thanks

something i'd like to add from my experience with this "mod" that dino made this semi write-up for:

when i ran my switch wiring, i noticed that the bolt that is on the bottom of the starter solenoid (the bolt that holds the plastic harness onto the solenoid) is slightly exposed with about 1/3" of bolt left open. so i slipped a connector over that bolt and ran the wire to that, and the first nut i grabbed from my toolbox was a perfect fit and tightened it down with that. so instead of splicing a wire into the solenoid wire like Dino suggested, i made the wiring a little cleaner by running the wire to the solenoid post and wrapping that wire in some shrinkwrap electrical tape along with the solenoid wire that's already there.

screwdriver will work to jump the B+ and S terminal on the starter too.

Id go with the push button idea from Dino.

Originally posted by DarkOne
...yay, let's go where ever we were going...

LQTM, Dino's sarcasm is as subtle as ever.

I must be missing something, because I don't know how this problem has been tracked to as far as the ignition switch (inferring it is suspect), and that the faulty solenoid wiring/connections has been ruled out. That could cause a v-drop big enough to where only a direct connection to your + battery terminal (or another battery, as mentioned in this thread) allows the solenoid mechanism to get the proper voltage. Has anyone taken a voltometer to the spade connecter and then to small wire at the solenoid when this *no start* issue arised? EDIT: I'm all for radioshacking my way to freedom, but I need the basic questions answered first

I had a similar problem a while back with the eclipse. Are you guys using the stock battery terminals? If so, there is a ring inside the positive terminal that is right up against the outside of the terminal. Hard to explain I know. But anyways, I had corrosion in between those 2 and sometime it would start and other times it wouldn't because it wasn't getting a good connection to the battery. Battery read enough voltage, but it wasn't getting anywhere because of the terminal. I went to wal-mart and bought some 1-2 dollar metal terminals and that fixed the problem perfectly. Something to maybe check on also.

Originally posted by ez
LQTM, Dino's sarcasm is as subtle as ever.

Welcone.

Originally posted by ez
I must be missing something, because I don't know how this problem has been tracked to as far as the ignition switch

Blame Terry. In my years, Murix, Armond, myself, and several others had this issue and took the easy way out. Somone else here had the same problem and StarTurboTalon tracked it all the way back to the ignition switch - at which point, the individual posing the question radioshacked it. I can't remember the exact thread nor the exact diagnosis, but I know how to fix it.

if you need the extra battery to jump it but everything else seems fine it's probably an old starter getting heatsoaked. heat=resistance more resistance means more power is needed to push things through. it's the sign of an old starter showing it's age. I have this problem on the 914, I changed the starter out on that and it mostly cleared up the problem. hot days and stop and go traffic can make it more likely to happen but it is an air-cooled engine in that thing.

so here's what happened today...

the push button starter failed to start the car for the first time since i put it in...i turn the key, try the button again, and the starter sloooooowly turns over one time and then stops turning and starts clicking.

only when i attached another car's battery did it start up as normal. then i drove to the gas station to add some air to the tires, and when i got back in the car, the headlights were flickering, the stereo was cutting on and off, and the gauges were going haywire (EGT reading 1000, then 1600, then 800, etc, while idling). so i pull off to go back to the house, and the car dies...completely. Voltmeter reads nothing. less than 8 volts (the lowest mark on the gauge). so i had to call someone out to jump me off again.

wtf is that? just a bad starter? alternator works fine, because the gauge read 13 volts once i got back home and shut it off. battery connections look solid. could the starter be the problem? coil pack? any ideas? If i put this extra starter back in and it doesn't work either, what should i check next? my coil pack is a relatively new MSD Blaster unit, less than 5,000 miles on it.

Sounds like a dying battery.

Battery is brand new...just bought it last week as a solution for my starter problem, which i later fixed using your idea from this very post. And here we are again, at square one.

cables have been replaced? starter too? battery as well? sounds like shorting starter or switch that's draining the battery.

Yeah i think you're right, i thought it was a short at first, but then i remembered that the battery light has starting coming on when i'm driving with the stereo turned up and idling. when i stop at a light the battery light comes on, and when i pull away it goes back off. but that doesn't explain why everything started going crazy the other day, because the radio was tuned down at the time.

Originally posted by RoninEclipse2G
cables have been replaced? starter too? battery as well? sounds like shorting starter or switch that's draining the battery.

Or a failing alternator.

Things go crazy when the power gets low.

Originally posted by DarkOne

Originally posted by RoninEclipse2G cables have been replaced? starter too? battery as well? sounds like shorting starter or switch that's draining the battery.

Or a failing alternator. Things go crazy when the power gets low.

yup, check the alternator wires and the alternator itself. the mention of the light coming on WHILE driving kicked that thought into my head too.

swapped alternators today...problem solved.