philtor

My 2008 Civic is disabled in a Walmart parking lot. It's my starter. Before I throw away $100+ for a tow to my Honda dealer is there any trick to that might get one more start out of it so I can drive it there myself?

My Civic just went over 100k miles. Like 3 times in the past few months it wouldn't start right away usually after I drove a short distance and didn't let it sit too long like running into post office or grocery store. Always eventually got it started though when this happened it sounded very weak like it just barely started. My battery was almost 3 years old and I live in the desert so I figured it was weak. I took it Autozone where I had 2 months left on full warranty and they replaced it for free no questions asked. Seemed to solve problem then couple weeks later it wouldn't start again. It would happen then be fine for a few weeks then happen again so I brought it to my dealer and of course that day it was starting right up every time. They checked everything and were basically like we can't find anything wrong. Then when they went to start my car to drive it out to me they duplicated the problem and told me my starter was going bad. They quoted me $806 though they always have 10% off coupons online so it will be like $725. I only had like $500 so I couldn't get it done that day. The plan was to go back this Thursday when I had the money. They told me I have some time but that no start issue will happen more and more etc. Even when I had the issues I could always get it started after a few tries or letting it sit for awhile. Then yesterday I couldn't get it started at all and took the bus home hoping if it sat overnight I could get it started and drive it right to my dealer this morning. But I took the bus back this morning and it's not even making the whirring noise anymore it's just pretty much dead silent when you turn the key.

Jeema

Sorry to hear. My wife's 06 Civic had the same issue. I was told at the shop it's somewhat common on that generation of Civics.

I don't know if there's anything you can do. Maybe just try banging on the starter itself a little bit with something to see if you can jiggle it back to life one more time? Or if your car happens to be a stick shift (and you have some help), you could attempt a push start...

holmesnmanny

Your starters are bad. I had my starter go out at only 95k. Picked up this Pure Energy brand at rockauto and still going strong after 65k now.
These Denso starters should be going a lot longer than this but I have an automatic now and they tend to be inferior to their manual counterparts.
2006 HONDA CIVIC 1.8L L4 Starter Motor | RockAuto

The Pure Energy remans are 80 but you get the 40 back after you return it. When you're ready to return the core(old starter), log back into your rockauto account and print out a return receipt. It will deduct like $7 from your core.

foumer

Mine started acting up at 120k miles.. Bought a rebuild kit from ebay.. 5k miles and still works. Its just kinda pita to remove if your are doing it.