Dead starter? Need help diagnosing no crank situation. Topic is solved

[leapdragon]

So I have an '02 V70XC that is one of our daily drivers.

Last few days as it's gotten colder, the starts have been increasingly sluggish meaning the actual rotation of the starter (i.e. it's not: a ton of cranking to finally fire, it's rather: a tired sounding, slow crank that fires after one or two spins). We routinely check numbers in torque on all of these old cars and the voltage when running has been fine, in the 14v range, and the alternator is relatively new.

Anyway, the sluggish crank sounded like every other bad battery we've ever had and the battery in this car is/was 5+ years old.

It was so obviously a bad battery that I didn't think any more about it, spent a week saying "cold weather is here and that battery is just about dead, got to get a battery before it leaves us stranded somewhere," and finally went and bought a battery and stuck it in the back to await replacement. Drove this car to do it in fact, sluggish start going to the auto store, sluggish start coming back.

Got outside today, put in the new battery, and—no crank at all. Not sluggish, none. Checked voltage, seemed fine, but decided to try to jump, and then a jump starter. Then swapped in a working super new, high-crank battery from our '07 XC70. Nada.

Basically, lights and computer come on, I can hear the solenoid activating and then deactivating, but no crank. Every now and then you'll get a really sluggish half-hearted "little bit" of rotation but never past what I presume is compression. Putting the car in neutral makes no difference. No codes.

So, questions:

- Is this most likely a bad starter? (This is our fourth 70 series wagon, never had a bad starter before, does it happen?)
- What else could it be?
- What steps can an "at home amateur mechanic" take to try to diagnose?
- If it seems to be the starter, how hard is the starter to replace? Any big gotchas?

[Vova585]

Not bad to replace. However, if all the hoses and wires are old and brittle around, you might end up fixing some stuff on a way. If possible, try to locate local starter rebuilder to fix your old one, or buy one from fcp(still will be a rebuild), or buy used one oem. Do not buy from Advance, zone, boys, napa...all junk.

[jonesg]

So I have an '02 V70XC that is one of our daily drivers.

Last few days as it's gotten colder, the starts have been increasingly sluggish meaning the actual rotation of the starter (i.e. it's not: a ton of cranking to finally fire, it's rather: a tired sounding, slow crank that fires after one or two spins). We routinely check numbers in torque on all of these old cars and the voltage when running has been fine, in the 14v range, and the alternator is relatively new.

Anyway, the sluggish crank sounded like every other bad battery we've ever had and the battery in this car is/was 5+ years old.

It was so obviously a bad battery that I didn't think any more about it, spent a week saying "cold weather is here and that battery is just about dead, got to get a battery before it leaves us stranded somewhere," and finally went and bought a battery and stuck it in the back to await replacement. Drove this car to do it in fact, sluggish start going to the auto store, sluggish start coming back.

Got outside today, put in the new battery, and—no crank at all. Not sluggish, none. Checked voltage, seemed fine, but decided to try to jump, and then a jump starter. Then swapped in a working super new, high-crank battery from our '07 XC70. Nada.

Basically, lights and computer come on, I can hear the solenoid activating and then deactivating, but no crank. Every now and then you'll get a really sluggish half-hearted "little bit" of rotation but never past what I presume is compression. Putting the car in neutral makes no difference. No codes.

So, questions:

- Is this most likely a bad starter? (This is our fourth 70 series wagon, never had a bad starter before, does it happen?)
- What else could it be?
- What steps can an "at home amateur mechanic" take to try to diagnose?
- If it seems to be the starter, how hard is the starter to replace? Any big gotchas?

tap on the starter with a screwdriver handle as someone turns the key.if it cranks it should be replaced.
if it doesn't crank try jumping the terminals with the blade end of the screwdriver, it it cranks its a problem with the ign switch.
I spent a winter starting my car with a screwdiver blade, turn ign on and reach down, jump the termnals and I was off to work.
Come spring I looked at the price of a new ign switch and installed a push button switch instead.

[leapdragon]

The update: I took a look at a couple videos about replacing the starter on a P2 and also took a light back out to my engine bay and poked around to develop a mental plan/map for replacing it and to estimate difficulty.

I figured it was a job I could do on a Saturday afternoon no sweat and since it's not a safety-critical component and I didn't think it was a job that I'd hate to do again, I just had an aftermarket one overnighted via Amazon. On arrival, replacement bench tested as good so I installed it. Actually only took me about 1.5 hours, and honestly one of those "kind of pleasant" jobs where everything is straightforward and easy at a leisurely pace and posture.

Issue resolved, old starter was bad. Actually failure mode was interesting, it seems to have failed in multiple ways. First, the motor does not spin when power is applied. But also the solenoid clicks yet the little engagement gear seems to have become disengaged from the solenoid in some way, in that it flops freely in and out (not spinning) whether power is applied or not, despite clicks.

Wildly, a noise I had thought was a dying prop shaft (intermittent rapid chirping noises when turning) appears to have disappeared... Leading me to wonder if that noise was actually the starter bits flopping in and out against the flywheel teeth as I cornered.

In any case, problem solved.

Advice for anyone doing the same job: just remove all of the following:

- Any vacuum tubing in the way
- Intercooler to throttle pipe
- Engine bay fan

It doesn't take long to do these removals and once you do, you literally have tons of space and have a direct line of sight to everything. Like I said, took about 1.5 hours and was very straightforward, not a single curse word or "oh @#$" moment. If I'd done what some of the videos do and tried to do it without the removals with a stubby ratchet and a boroscope cam, I'd probably still be out there swearing.

[abscate]

The P80 and P2 engine bay is a tight place so removing stuff to get access is usually time saving. Dealing with a stripped torx or hex because you didn’t get your tool bit in deep and square is a cruel teacher of wasted time

[122sPhil]

in those old solenoids you can flip the contacts over, the newer ones were a lot smaller and were sealed for life.