1998 SC2 won't Crank

:eek7: My wife's 98 is driving us insane. It's got 37000 mi and now the starter won't crank the engine, but only occasionally. It happened one time to my brother while he borrowed the car back in Oct. It happens more frequently (almost predictably) lately. We (my brother and I, both mechanics) believed that it was just a failing five year old 60 mo battery waited until it got more frequent to change it. Well, I did and it's still happening. The wife says only when multiple, short jaunts does it occur. So, today we started wringing out the wiring. The neutral switch is good, the wires are tight and clean the starter is in good shape, brushes and windings check in good condition. The motor runs well while connected to test bench. Both of us suspect a secondary relay as we cannot wring out the ignition switch as part of the circuit (but checks ok by itself), but cannot find a relay before the neutral switch. We see it in the wiring diagram, but not in the car. Can anyone add something we may have overlooked?

It's interesting you mention this problem. I own a 1997 Saturn SC1 and since we've had very cold temps. here it has been giving me trouble starting. I just see the lights on the display, hear the radio, and hear the blower(heater/air), but nothing else from the engine. The battery is new(AC delco with an "eye", which shows it's fully charged). It's strange, I have to coax it into starting after several attempts. I'm not certain what the problem is.....a bad relay or a loose connection. But finding out is not possible unless I have mechanic do trial and error until he finds and fixes the problem. However, once he gets the car started, he'll think he fixed it. I can get it started, but only after several attempts when it's very cold. I don't know if the cold weather and the starting issue occurring at the same time are just a coincidence or if there is something that becomes too affected by the cold, such as the solenoid built into the starter, which my father says could somehow fail to move, and initiate the battery and engine. The electrical flow must just stop when it gets to a certain area. After the third or fourth time trying, the car slowly whines to a start. But before then, the first time I start it, I just see the displays, hear the radio, and also hear the blower. But that's it. The second time, I see and hear all of this and maybe a click or two, but no engine noise. If I wait a minute and try again, it slowly crawls to a start. Then, thereafter, when it's warm, I can start it up as many times as necessary. It's strange. Do you know what the problem may be?

:biggrin: We found the issue when we dug in deeper. Seems as though the solenoid coil was moving as the motor was operated. The more starts and stops, the quicker the problem manifested itself. When the motor was allowed to rest awhile the solenoid reclocked itself allowing starting. The motor itself was in awesome shape but we swapped it out and haven't seen hide nor hair of the issue. :2cents: