Dead Starter

[stoney]

Loaded up with travel trailer and all this past Sunday to go camping for a few weeks, park on road outside my house, turn off truck to do a few things and then went to start the truck and nothing....truck won’t start.
Went through a bunch of stuff to try and find the issue that ended up being a bad starter.
Went with new starter from dealer seeing as they were the only game around with stock vs a day wait, swapped it out on the road and good to go.
On our way camping mid day Monday.

Did some digging on Sunday to see if this was posted anywhere by others on the truck I have and found nothing, so figured I’d add my two cents about the situation.

 

[Iron Outlaw]

How many miles you have on the truck? Did it act funny before it went bad?

 

[Sherman Bird]

How many miles you have on the truck? Did it act funny before it went bad?

define "funny"! I mean, the last starter I had go out on my 3.9 kind of chuckled as it failed!

 

[stoney]

Truck has around 101,000 km and there were no signs beforehand..... just decided to stop one Sunday morning.

 

[Sherman Bird]

Truck has around 101,000 km and there were no signs beforehand..... just decided to stop one Sunday morning.

Stop fretting it.... it runs! Cars DO break down!

 

[stoney]

Stop fretting it.... it runs! Cars DO break down!

No fretting here, just sharing some info.
Like I said, I couldn’t find a lot of info on the www about starters going on these trucks, so figured I’d share.

The funny part about when it goes is there is not the usual tell tale sign of starter, or I guess solenoid making much noise. It will click but only once, that’s hard to hear in the cab, than its like the truck shuts down that circuit because it didn’t start.... so no more clicking for a while.

I did talk to my BIL afterwards who works at a dealer and he confirmed the external wire between the starter and solenoid are a weak point on the starters, and I live in a full 4 season geographical location.

 

[Hemi395]

So that's roughly 63000 miles, that's kinda low for a starter tbh. I have 66000 on my 2013 and the starter (so far anyway) has been fine. My work van has 82000 on it and that gets started multiple times per day and thats fine.

Sounds like it was just a starter that failed early....

 

[stoney]

So that's roughly 63000 miles, that's kinda low for a starter tbh. I have 66000 on my 2013 and the starter (so far anyway) has been fine. My work van has 82000 on it and that gets started multiple times per day and thats fine.

Sounds like it was just a starter that failed early....

I agree, seems early to me.... from my experience all the trucks I’ve owned so far have lasted, but they usually have plenty of room around them whereas my other vehicles that weren’t trucks tended to need replacements sooner that were a lot more tightly packed in there!

At least it’s an easy fix....hardest part was getting the solenoid trigger wire off.....and it would have been nice to work in my garage vs the street out front of my house!

 

[Hemi395]

I agree, seems early to me.... from my experience all the trucks I’ve owned so far have lasted, but they usually have plenty of room around them whereas my other vehicles that weren’t trucks tended to need replacements sooner that were a lot more tightly packed in there!

At least it’s an easy fix....hardest part was getting the solenoid trigger wire off.....and it would have been nice to work in my garage vs the street out front of my house!

Yeah nothing worse than having to work on your vehicle on the ground....

 

[stoney]

Yeah nothing worse than having to work on your vehicle on the ground....

I know, hate being spoiled .... god for bid it actually broke on the side of the highway while enroute, pros and cons

 

[2003F350]

I agree, seems early to me.... from my experience all the trucks I’ve owned so far have lasted, but they usually have plenty of room around them whereas my other vehicles that weren’t trucks tended to need replacements sooner that were a lot more tightly packed in there!

At least it’s an easy fix....hardest part was getting the solenoid trigger wire off.....and it would have been nice to work in my garage vs the street out front of my house!

That depends on how often you're using the starter, honestly.

My parents had a Suburban that didn't need a starter until damn near 200k miles, but the average trip for that thing was 50+ miles before it was turned off, so the starter didn't see much use.

On the flip side, I had a friend with a Grand Prix who almost never left town but started the car multiple times every 2-3 hours minimum. That starter didn't last 60k miles.

I am leery about the new start/stop function on many new vehicles. If they didn't test those starters right, they'll have a lot of failures before 100k miles. On the other hand, if they did their testing right, those things are going to be tanks, so people who disable start/stop or drive primarily on the highway are going to have 200k+ starters.

 

[stoney]

That depends on how often you're using the starter, honestly.

My parents had a Suburban that didn't need a starter until damn near 200k miles, but the average trip for that thing was 50+ miles before it was turned off, so the starter didn't see much use.

On the flip side, I had a friend with a Grand Prix who almost never left town but started the car multiple times every 2-3 hours minimum. That starter didn't last 60k miles.

I am leery about the new start/stop function on many new vehicles. If they didn't test those starters right, they'll have a lot of failures before 100k miles. On the other hand, if they did their testing right, those things are going to be tanks, so people who disable start/stop or drive primarily on the highway are going to have 200k+ starters.

Funny enough this truck likely sees the fewest km per year vs any of my past trucks.

I hate the start/stop feature on vehicles, if I ever buy one with it, I’ll be researching how to disable for sure.

 

[2003F350]

Funny enough this truck likely sees the fewest km per year vs any of my past trucks.

I hate the start/stop feature on vehicles, if I ever buy one with it, I’ll be researching how to disable for sure.

They all have a manual override button somewhere on the dash - for 'emergency situations.'

I believe there has been discussion on how to disable it in the computer permanently, though I'm not sure if anyone has actually done it yet.