Blech. Car problems. Our little 1992 Toyota Corolla seems to be having an ignition issue: it looks like the solenoid is on its last legs. See, when you turn the key to crank the engine, most of the time you get a click-click sound from under the hood and nothing else. After a while, it will sometimes start with much labored hesitation, then run fine. Sometimes there’s no problem turning it over, sometimes (like today), it won’t turn over at all even after trying for 30 minutes.
After doing my homework on this kind of problem, I’ve narrowed it down to the starter motor - specifically the solenoid. I believe either the plunger and the contacts inside are caked up with carbon buildup or worn down to the point where they don’t make contact anymore. If they don’t make contact, juice does not go from the battery to the starter and you get no ignition. Thankfully, it also seems relatively easy to fix, and we’re going to try to take out the starter and see if we can’t clean out the solenoid to get a bit more life out of it.
Worse comes to worse, I guess I’ll be having to pay about $150-$200 on a new starter. If anyone wants to buy some of my prints to help out with that expense, I would be forever grateful.
on Sep 15th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Ouch! that doesn’t sound too good! I hate it when my car has something wrong with it as its never something cheap to fix always has to be expensive =( Hopefully you can get it fixed for less.
Ps you prints are amazing!!
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Skogul reply on September 15th, 2008 6:47 pm:
Yeah, I was really hoping it would just be a battery issue that wouldn’t cost more than $100 to replace - no such luck, lol.
We got it fixed, and for a little less than a lot of people claim to have to pay for the same kind of job, but it still totaled to about $300 in the end. What can ya do, though? Car’s gotta run, right?
And thank you! I appreciate the compliment!
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on Sep 15th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I didn’t understand a word you wrote about your car problems. I don’t have a car nor a driver’s license so I don’t get those kinds of things. I hope you’ll be able to fix it soon.
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Skogul reply on September 15th, 2008 6:48 pm:
Haha. Basically it was just a problem keeping the car from even starting that cost about $300 to get fixed and gave me a headache.
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on Sep 17th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
At least the problem is minor rather than expensive. Otherwise, I would have taken the excuse to get a new car.
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on Sep 17th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
That is really a pain, hopefully you can get it fixed and won’t have to worry.
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on Sep 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Kudos with the car problems, hope t all goes well.
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