I have the infamous Iron Duke motor. It would appear that my starter has gone bad again. Ive owned the car since 1998 and i've changed the starter 3 times.

Am I just getting bad parts or are the 2.5L motors rough on starters. my family has owned other 2.5L vehicles and I don't recall changing the starters on them.

I've gotten starters from Autozone and Pepboys. Should I go someplace else?

What's your experiences/recommendations with this issue?

-bill

 

mine hasnt eaten any yet.[that i know of]

did you get a warrenty? did you put it in yourself?

is your flywheel still good?no broken teeth or anything?

 

ok so far i have only had two starters in my car and i have had it for 5 months. I heard that 1 out of 3 starters work. Becuase the Quality Control sucks so much in China.

Make sure the starter is nice and tight also

 

Yea, define "eats starters"....

 

the term "eats starters" is more of a funny quote to get people to look and help me out. In most cases the solenoid goes out, or the actual case breakes that holds the starter gear, or in the latest case, it just clicks when the key is turned...like the starter gear moves into the flywheel but doesn't "turn" over. I checked the battery and I have full charge. I may take the battery and starter out and have them checked out.


I work on all my repairs, so the starters were replaced by myself. All were bolted on tight.

I'll check the "teeth" of the flywheel to make sure there is no damage.

We bought a starter for my bro's camaro and installed it. We turned the key on then off and the starter was still going...with the key off! We had to pull the battery cable to shut it off.

It sounds as if it may just be quality problems with the starters.

anyone else have any troubles?

-bill

 

i hate chinese garbage.

i sometimes wont buy something if its chinese.

especialy car parts.

just go to junk yard and get half adozen used ones and have some spares.

i bet old american junk is better then new chinese crap any day.'

or try to find an american company that makes starters.

 

just because something is made or rather "assembled" in America, doesn't mean the parts it consists of aren't from overseas.

Just about every car part is made overseas regardless if it's domestic.

 

If you're actually sometimes breaking the case of the starter, unless you are the most unlucky guy in the world, that just doesn't happen unless something is done incorrectly or something else is wrong. Are you absolutely positive you are shimming the starter correctly and there is the recommended space between the flywheel gears and the starter gears when engaged? It should be about the width of a bent paperclip between the gears. If this is all correct, I suppose you could be buying the worst of the worst quality starters, so do one of these... One, rebuild your starter. Well, you don't have the factory one anymore, so to get a factory one, go to a junkyard or similar place and pull a used one and rebuild it. Maybe these aftermarket ones are being rebuilt with substandard parts or they're making the cases out of garbage metal of some kind. Pay attention to those shims. If that's not to your liking, and I don't know if you can still get these, but try and get a new ac delco starter from GM or some other ac delco seller. If that's not possible, try yet another store and another brand.

I used to eat starters on my 403 olds and it was because I had never replaced them before and never got the shims right. Solenoid would die, case would crack, like yours. Also, if at all possible, try and get a heat shield for your starter. Even if it's not that near the exhaust. The heat still may be killing the thing. If they don't make em, just look at one online, you could fabricate it by hand easily.

 

Thanks for all the great tips. I must add that I'm getting several good years out of each starter. It hasn't been one right after another.

I try and shim the starters to the recommended tolerances. Most of the starters I have purchased gave me a guage to measure how many shims you'll need.

The one that broke was a cheap remanufactured starter. I may look into getting an AC Delco brand this time.

 

I got tired of replacing starters in my pickup. Finally broke down and got a reman from the dealer. Yeah, it was a fair bit more expensive, but it's been loooong time since I've been under it for starter issues.

Same thing with the HVAC blower motor. The factory one started getting noisy after 10 years so bought a will-fit replacement. Heck, it was noisier than the one I took out so I returned it. Same thing with the second one noisy and it crapped out about 9 months later. Didn't want to go through it all again even though it was in warranty - went to the dealer and got one. No more noise, no problems two years later...

Would you like me to repeat the same story with alternators?

 

Exactly. Heck.. the entire 4th gen line were not ever american made. they all came from canada... Most auto parts are made out of the US.. The countries I see most are either Canada or Mexico... Does not bother me a great deal since i have never had a part i have bought not work... Well.. excet for a battery... but that was the fault of my stupidity in allowing a best buy shop install a stereo system the same day I bought the battery (apparently they shorted the batter right to ground and it pretty much fried it)

 

Well I got around to looking into my starter problem a little bit closer this past weekend.

I discovered that the positive battery cable connects to the solenoid and the entire terminal/bolt attachemnt for the cable to the solenoid was broken off. The bolt had completely separated from the starter.

DOH! So I take down the starter to find that one of the mounting holes was completely broken off from the starter as well!

I don't know how long my car is planning on sticking around so I went ahead and exchanged the starter at Auto Zone. I don't exactly have the spare cash to buy a brand new AC Delco starter and I don't want to put one on a car that wont get driven much either.

So starter number two that has "fallen apart".

-bill

 

Besides the apparent defect. You may want to do the soleniod relocation that most of the V8 guys do. That has a tendancy to cause some trouble. It will get the soleniod away from any heat.

 

lol I wish you could see some of the quality controll that has happened with some oil stuff that was made for a company I work for from time to time.

it isn't uncommon them to have chunks of polymer still in there rather then having the stuff melted cause they get a little behind.

did quite a few american automakers have recalls on their cars because of good ol' american quality control?

 

Get a Tilton starter and be done with it. It may be a 4 banger but it's worth it.