Knowing when your Starter needs to be Replaced
Before you even think putting the car into the local repair shop for a diagnosis of your starter, you can avoid the cost by doing a few simple tests yourself. There are a few symptoms that will tell you that the starter isn't going to last much longer. All but the very least savy car owner will be able to determining whether or not the problem is the starter, or something else, like a bad cable, or a weak battery.
I recall helping a neighbor who insisted her car needed to be towed to a shop. She wasn't exactly a know nothing when it came to having some knowledge about trouble shooting a problem like many women do. She learned from advice I've given her in the past to not be so quick to seek out a repair shop for diagnosing her problem.
After hearing my own wife's thoughts about what she thought was the problem with her car, I then realized that most women were under lambs in the wild when it came to understanding the importance of never giving a mechanic more reasons to over charge for a minor repair.
Just one example would be, "I think the starter might be bad." She tells the mechanic that, and the mechanic knows that the starter is cranking, but she already is primed by her own suggestion that she might need a new starter. The mechanic is only too happy to oblige, even though he knows it was only a corroded cable. So he replaces the cable, and tells her he replaced the starter with a good one from another car to save her some money.
Of course he never did, but what would she know? There are many other ways a mechanic does this when a customer knows nothing about a car, and offers what he or she thinks it could be. So, first determine that your battery cables are not loose or corroded. This will give similar symptoms of a bad starter in the minds of the less experienced.
Then turn on lights and accessories. If they seem to function normally, you know its not your battery. We can assume that when you try turning over the engine, and hear just a clicking sound, thats the sound of the solenoid working. If you get no sound at all, then its bad. If the solenoid is working, and the starter doesn't crank the engine, you may have burnt windings. Another sound you may hear is an attempt by the starter to crank, but followed by a whirring sound, which is indicative of something wrong as well. The starter shaft is spinning but not engaging the teeth that enables it to crank the engine.
Quite often accessories working gives a wrong diagnosis. They can work, but when using the starter, it just makes a sound as though the battery was almost dead. This is because the cable that is attached to the battery post may need cleaning and tightening, and is not providing enough contact to fully crank the starter.
Just never, and I mean never, offer your opinion to a mechanic as to what you think the problem may be. As I have said, he just might pretend to fix what you think is wrong, and then charge you for the starter as well by telling you that what he had to fix (which he didn't have to) caused the starter to go bad.They want your money, so be sure you know before you go.
