Car would not start the other day. I put the key in, and would get the normal churning sound of attempting to start but just would never quite turn on. I didn't have time to mess with it yesterday so I took another car.

Today while I attempted to start the car again it would not start. I checked to make sure all spark plugs fired. I made sure all fuel injectors functioned. After doing so my brother began tapping the starter while I attempted to start the car again, after about 6-8 taps, the car started up. I let it idle for about 20 seconds and turned it off. I started it a few more times afterwards and it now starts right up with out any issues.

What could have caused this? I bought a new starter already and don't want to put it in if this is not the fault. So, would it be the starter itself or maybe just the solenoid?

 

Battery. I am sure the battery lost it's charge somehow, but after the car had enough charge to atleast turnitself over and start, the battery recharged and will sustain the charge to keep the car running, as well as allow it to start another time.

 

Never hit the housing of a starter, there are field coils attached to the inside of the case, and if you hit them just right it will knock them loose, grounding them to the armature, and causing a HUGE current draw, and if the right components short could destroy the battery as well, just remember that for next time...

Is the starter turning slower than usual? or are you referring to full crack speed but it just doesn't turn over? I'm somewhat confused, clarify.

The starter solenoid is integrated into the starter unit. It is also that "clack" sound that your car makes when there isn't enough juice to turn the car over. If your clack is intermittent, check your connections and if that does not resolve it, prepare for a new starter. To test the solenoid, connect a wire to the battery, and run it and touch it to the "S" terminal on the starter (it will be a blk/yel wire with a stereo speaker type clip.) Only do this test momentarily as to not strain the solenoid, if it does not "clack" or does so intermittently you have a failing solenoid.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HCivicSi23 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Battery. I am sure the battery lost it's charge somehow, but after the car had enough charge to atleast turnitself over and start, the battery recharged and will sustain the charge to keep the car running, as well as allow it to start another time. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I failed to mention that the engine turns over at normal speed. So I don't/didn't see how it could be the battery. I failed to mention that I even connected jumper cables between it an another vehicle. This made the engine turn over just a little bit faster, however, it still never turned on.

It didn't turn over until I attempted to start it while my brother tapped away at it. (We finally got it to start without jumper cables connected.)

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slowcivic2k &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Never hit the housing of a starter, there are field coils attached to the inside of the case, and if you hit them just right it will knock them loose, grounding them to the armature, and causing a HUGE current draw, and if the right components short could destroy the battery as well, just remember that for next time...

Is the starter turning slower than usual? or are you referring to full crack speed but it just doesn't turn over? I'm somewhat confused, clarify.

The starter solenoid is integrated into the starter unit. It is also that "clack" sound that your car makes when there isn't enough juice to turn the car over. If your clack is intermittent, check your connections and if that does not resolve it, prepare for a new starter. To test the solenoid, connect a wire to the battery, and run it and touch it to the "S" terminal on the starter (it will be a blk/yel wire with a stereo speaker type clip.) Only do this test momentarily as to not strain the solenoid, if it does not "clack" or does so intermittently you have a failing solenoid.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks for the advice. I will not be tapping the starter anymore.

The starter turns at normal speed. In fact it makes the normal sound that cars make when you turn the key to start it. The symptoms were basically that it would turn and turn and turn but never get running.

I am very familiar with the "clack" sound that the you'll get when your battery too low when you attempt to start it, however, this is not the sound that I get when trying to get the car to start. The vehicle makes the normal sound that any healthy automobile makes when you turn the key to start it.

With healthy cars, when you turn the key for 2-3 seconds they make the starting noise, and you can then let go of the key and the car begins to idle. With my car, I'd just let the starter turn and turn and turn (sounds just like any other healthy vehicle w/o starting issues) but never gets to the point where you can let go of the key to allow the engine to idle. (Hope this clears it up.)

 

Check to see if you have spark at the spark plugs, take a plug out and stick it back in its wire and touch it to a good ground, it should spark very easily, if it doesn't see my thread on no spark issues:

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2021523

A new starter would not have any impact on any other system in the car, as nothing depends on it nor does the starter rely on anything except the key. You may have a intermittent ignition problem, if it comes back, check for spark.

 

I already covered in my initial post that there was no issue with spark.