I believe I may have posted this in the wrong section.....Mods please move accordingly

I got in my car to go somewhere the other day turned the key and the starter made horrible noise. When I turn the key it sounds like its spinning just not engageing. Its been giving me problems for the past couple of months but nothing that I was initially worried about. I would usually bump the starter acouple of times and it would fire up.

Is there a chance a solenoid has gone out or is the starter done? I know this seems like a basic question but I was looking for insight to see if this has happened to anybody else. The car does have 140,xxx+ on it. I also feel like it could be electrical because this what happened to speedo while trying to get it to start.



Any ideas on what may be the problem or if you just want to tell me this is a dumb question and to forget about it all and buy a new starter then please feel free. I just want to get it running again and to see if either one of these problems have come up before. Thanks

 

Personally I would replace it. Since the car has so many miles with the same starter, change it. One thing I have learned is to wrap the starter in heat shielding tape. I went through a few before doing this.