Re: Sentra starter

Mar 09, 2006 1 Replies



> My past experience with starters is that if you have a problem, in a
> short time it will fail and the car won't start. However, we have owned
> a '96 Nissan Sentra 1.6 for about a year and it has developed a noisy,
> sluggish starter which however has never failed to start the car. That
> is, it's noisy and sluggish the first time you start the car in the
> morning, but it improves if the car has been running and if the car is
> hot, the starter works almost normally. Is this a characteristic of > Nissan's?
>
> Also, I have changed out a few starters in my time, but this one is
> concealed under the intake manifold, etc., and over some other stuff. > Sheeesh!
>
> Dail Singleton

OK, my computer is old and I need to reset the clock frequently, and before I sent the post I accidently set it to the wrong date.


Dail


No. It's not normal to have such a sluggish starter in the morning. You are describing a failure mode that occurs occasionally. Eventually, the starter may draw too much current to start the vehicle. Also, if you are not careful the drive may not engage properly and the teeth on the flywheel can be damaged. Based on the degree of difficulty, you have to judge how long to go with it. It could go on a long time or not. You could feel the positive cable after one of these sluggish starts to see how hot it gets or check the voltage drop with a meter. However, these checks don't add much to what you already know about needing a starter.

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