One day I parked my car (no problem up to this point) and then it didn't start anymore. The electrics came on but it didn't turn over or anything. (BTW it has a fourth tank of gas) I jumped the car but it still wouldn't start, so a few days later I took my battery in and had it tested, thinking it was probably bad (It is about four years old). It tested at 98% charge however, so I took it home and cleaned the connections and put it in and tried my car. It started! But only once, and it was slow to start - there was a scraping sound as it turned over, like iron wool scraping across metal. I thought, I bet it's the starter! So a week later I took that out and had it tested and it's working perfectly fine as well. So a couple days later I put it back in and tried starting the car, and it started up perfectly! I got in and drove it around a couple of miles and everything was fine. Then I brought it home and turned it off, waited a few seconds and started it up again, and it started like it had before, slowly with a scraping sound. I let it run for a few minutes, turned the car off and attempted to start it again, but it was dead again - the electrics came on but it didn't turn over.

Any ideas?

 

could be a grounding issue... check the ground connections.

 

Thanks for the idea!

I'm pretty new to working on my own car and I'm not sure how to check the ground connections. I didn't see any mention in the FAQ and my searches returned little that was useful. Any advice?