Hi all - I'm just going to pick my car up. Brian my mechanic tested the starter wiring which was OK, but the starter was in poor shape. That figures - the car's mileage is over 250,000 km (I'm in Canada where we're on metric) - over 155,000 miles. A rebuilt starter is now installed, and the cost including labour & 15% taxes is about $265 CAN ($236 US), quite fair I think. Thanks to all of you for your help & encouragement. This is a great newsgroup - I wish they all were!