JT2000WS6

Hello, all. My car died the other day and I’m hoping it’s just the starter. I have a 2000 WS6 (M6) that had an intermittent starter problem. The car always cranked very well, and fired right up strong every time. The problem was the last couple of weeks about 1/3 of the time the starter would not disengage from the flywheel.

Last week I drove it to work, I cranked it up and the starter gear stuck again. I got it to unstick after a little while and drove to work. Later that morning I went to crank it up again and got nothing. No click, clicking, turning over… just nothing. Dead in the water. I still have power to everything else like the dash, power windows, headlights etc. So I push-started it and drove it home.

So far I’ve bypassed the VATS, bypassed the clutch switch, tested the starter & ignition relays (both good), checked all the related fuses, charged the battery and it still won’t start. I finally pulled the old starter and ordered a new one.

Today I had my wife try to crank the car while I put my multimeter contacts on the two wires which go to the solenoid on top of the starter to see if I would get 12V and got nothing. I set the multimeter to 20V DC, so hopefully I used the right setting.

Should I have had 12V to those two wires even with the starter out of the car?

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give some background and show what I’ve already tested.

1 FMF

iTrader: (1)

can u post a pic of your starter and the wires going to it?
from memory i believe there are only 3 terminals on the solenoid that's on the starter,
- one big one with a large insulated wire going from it to inside the starter body, don't measure this one.
- second big one with the large battery feed wire, it should always have 12v on it when key off is you measure from that terminal to ground.
- small terminal with a thin 14 or 16 gauge wire coming to it, this gets power when you turn your ignition key to start. if you measure this wire with it disconnected from starter then you should see 12v on it when key to start. I would not try to measure voltage on it when the wire is connected to the solenoid.

did you check your old starter on a bench after you removed it? if you got jumper cables it's not hard to do. the way you described your problem it makes me think initially you had a failed solenoid on the starter which i have experienced. what can cause that solenoid to fail is a bad wire or bad relay preventing the solenoid from getting full voltage and full current to operate and it can nuke it, i ended up going through 2 of them on my boat before replacing the slave solenoid (relay in your case) which cured the problem. in my case the starter pinion would not stay engaged to the flywheel because the solenoid wasn't getting enough power to push it out, eventually solenoid failed and starter would not work at all.

JT2000WS6

Thanks for the reply. I don't have a picture of the starter, but it's just as you described.

I was testing the wires incorrectly. I just tested the larger wire against ground and got 12.6V as expected. I don't have a helper at the moment, so I have to wait to test the smaller wire to see if I get 12V while the ignition is in start position. Hopefully I'll get 12V while being cranked.

I haven't tested the starter with jumper cables yet. I'm on baby duty now so I'll have to wait until I have backup to bench test the starter.

JT2000WS6

A quick update... I checked and have 12.2V on the smaller wire when the ignition is in start position, so I think my problem was the starter or solenoid. I should have the new starter in by tomorrow night and hopefully have the car back on the road.

JT2000WS6

Ok, another update and now I'm frustrated. As mentioned before the car had full power to everything (dash, windows, etc.) but wouldn't turn over. I replaced the starter tonight and when I tried to crank it for the first time power hit the starter, it engaged for a split second and then everything went dead. Now I have no power at all to anything. No dash, the car doesn't 'ding' with the key in the ignition and the door open... nothing. It's as if there's no battery in the car at all.

Putting a starter in is not that hard... I don't understand why the car is totally dead now. I hooked the wires to the right terminals and I can somewhat see them from the top so I don't think they are touching eachother. I torqued the mounting bolts to 37ft/lbs.

Does anyone have any ideas why this thing is totally dead now?