car won't start. probably electrical. help.

[Deuce Bigs]

got a 99 camaro and it won't start now. for the past two weeks or so my car has been having a hard time starting. battery shows 12.75 volts so that's good. starter isn't making any tell tale signs of whining so i don't think it's going out. car just has a hard time starting. i'll turn the key and it'll almost die but then it'll fire up and run fine. once i cleaned out the positive battery terminal and wire cause the wire was looking pretty corroded and that seemed to help for about a week then back to hard starting. then i just moved the wire on the battery a little and it would start fine a few times then back to hard starting. all my accesories run fine. the radio will stay on while i'm trying to start it and interior lights and they'll still be on when the car almost dies starting. any ideas?

[Gixer]

Check for corrosion and or tightness AT the starter from the battery. Just for grins, take the positive cable OFF the battery, take it OFF the starter, clean all the surfaces, then re-install the cable. Obviously you wanna install the starter side first THEN the battery ;)

I have found in my experience (because I've seen this 4 times now) sometimes either the connection at the starter is loose, OR some dirt/oil/other crap has worked it's way into the connection on the starter or the connection has become oxidized. Pull the cable, clean it well, install it, BOOM problem gone.

Let me know what happens.

I know this goes without saying, but DISCONNECT THE BATTERY SIDE FIRST [img]smile.gif[/img] In fact, disconnect the negative side as well and first, THEN the positive, just to be extra safe. If that positive cable hits ground and it's still attached to the battery, you will have a little puddle on the ground of what used to be your cable, possibly an engine fire, and God knows what would happen to you :(

-Gixer

[camaro_speedemon]

^ Do what he said, it sounds like an electrical problem. If that doesnt work, have Autozone load test your battery.

[Deuce Bigs]

well it was the actual starter. when i looked inside there were some magnets that were worn almost all the way down to almost nothing and there were some broken magnets. $170 later my car starts again. weird that it wasn't any of the normal dead starter symptoms like whining or clicking just hard starting then completely dead.

[PewterBird]

I read a good article on cars that won't start today in motor magazine. Here is the link http://www.motor.com/MAGAZINE/Pdf/052003_13.pdf