DSMTalk Forums: Mitsubishi Eclipse, Plymouth Laser, and Eagle Talon Forum banner

No Start!! Bad Ground? Bad Battery? Bad Starter? Magic?

15K views 22 replies 7 participants last post by  TurboJuice 
#1 ·
Ok, I am in need of some direction. There are a lot of variables here, but please give me your best guess as to what's wrong and what to try next.

3yr old optima red top battery - mounted in the trunk
Brand new autozone / duralast starter
Brand new autozone / duralast 90A alternator
Just regrounded and added additional ground to negative battery terminal


Now the issue is sometimes the car starts and sometimes it doesnt.
Here is what happened last night. I fire the car up after work for a cruise and it starts no problem. Cruise for an hour and i stall it at an intersection. I try to start it and it just clicks. Just one solid click and nothing at all.

I fiddle for 10 minutes before someone offers to push me over. She we push it over and and i figure what thge hell lets try and jump it. Hook up and the jumpers and vroom!

So limp it home and actually stalled it again! This time for some reason it decided to fire up.

I get in the garage, shut it off, then try to start again and nothing. Just a click. I crank it a bunch of time and it just clicks once everytime. Then all of a sudden it fires over. I shut it off again and then it wont start.

I let the car sit in the garage for 2 hours and when i came back out it fired up 4 times in a row with no hesitation.


When i got in the garage i took some voltages.
Battery voltage with the car on is 13.8
Alt voltage with the car on is 14.0
My turbo time on the dash reads 13.0

With the car off voltage at the battery is 12.2
Turbo timer reads 11.8


I am stumped. I thought because i jumped the car, the battery was tired. But i cranked the hell out of the battery in my garage(trying to drain it). But then i let the car sit and it fired up.



I have no idea, Do those voltages look OK? Maybe a bad starter?
Thanks for reading this far.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
From those voltages I doubt the battery is a problem. Since the car is running fine too I think we can rule out a lack of fuel/spark.

Sounds like the problem is the starter. That one solid click you hear is the relay trying to power the starter but the starter doing nothing. If it had cranked then the issue would be something else.

Good luck.
 
#6 ·
Okay , my battery is in the trunk and never, ever had an slow crank or problem. What i do wonder tho is what size wiring do you have to run from the battery to the fuse box. Also what size cable and how many cables and where do they go for the grounds in the trunk and under the hood?

Sounds like it should be an starter/solenoid problem but could be an small factor with your wiring and fuse/connections.

I have dual 0 gauge grounds in trunk and under hood.Have dual 0 gauge power going to an splitter box and then got a 4 ga going to the fuse box.
 
#7 ·
I have one 0 gauge + wire from the battery to the stock cluster under the hood.

I have one 0 gauge - from the battery to a paintless tab in the trunk
One 6 gauge - from the battery to a rear seat belt bolt hole, sanded down

one 6 gauge from the trans to the firewall
 
#8 ·
sounds like your battery in the trunk is fine. 0 gauge is plenty to run the power up there. By means of under the hood, as long as your original grounds are still there and the one that use to run to the battery you grounded to the firewall, i dont see that an problem.

Im sure most people here are going to point you toward your starter/solenoid combo. Your battery seems to be at an good voltage and so does your alternator. I read that when you did have the car able to start, the battery had plenty of power to keep cranking on its own so it still has its cranking amps....

I think the last thing you could try to do is when the car doesnt want to start, try to use an set of jumper cables to connect to both strut towers and connect to the engine and trans. See if its for some reason an bad grounding issue first then look at the starter. The jumper cables will just be both used for grounding- no/not positve.
 
#13 ·
Matt, We had that exact same problem with the teal 1g that we bought from Devin last winter.

The battery is in the stock location.

It ended up being the starter, we changed in and it never happened again!
 
#21 ·
I wouldn't try to test the amperage of a starter with a multimeter. It will blow up in your face (ask me how I know)
 
#23 ·
Got home from work and started the car up, and it fired on no problem.... :/

i shut it off and re-started it like 6 times and it didnt miss a beat once. I let it idle for 20 minutes hoping it would heat soak the starter. but my car runs too damn cool at idle it wasnt getting hot enough to do it.

Oh well i bought an OEM starter, so lets see if that changes it.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top