Prelude burns up starters

[hangun61]

My '88 Prelude, 2.0, 4 ws, 5 speed has had 4 starters in the last year. Anybody have any idea why this car burns up starters so quickly? Or is there some other issue I should be looking at? The 4 starters installed were all re-conditioned from Shucks Auto. Could there really be that big an issue with their parts?
Any help that anyone has is appreciated.

[lilwhitelude]

Make sure that the starter isn't staying engaged after cranking. If it isn't, replace with a new starter with a warrentee, preferably from O'reily auto parts. Never buy electronic parts from Auto Zone. They don't sell good parts, they sell warrentees.

[bobbyrae]

I will second that comment to stay away from the big chain autoparts stores, particularly for rebuilt parts. They will box it up as "powerbuilt" or some other store brand so you have no idea of who actually did the rebuild.

If it was rebuilt by Bosch, Orange county Alternators, or ACDelco, you can usually count on it being a good quality rebuild.

Kragen-Checker-Schucks: These guys are interesed in the maximum corporate profit at this point since they already dominate the market with a zillion stores. I currently hate them because their rebate forms intentionally hide the cutoff date down in the fine print just to mislead everybody! As if rebates aren't a bunch of BS already!

[duodad]

I disagree. Get a genuine Honda starter. It will probably cost a little more but it will save you from all of this hassle.

[bobbyrae]

Originally Posted by duodad

I disagree. Get a genuine Honda starter. It will probably cost a little more but it will save you from all of this hassle.

Just what are you disagreeing with? Honda rebuilt starters are $227 (list). They don't even appear to have new ones. You know they don't rebuild them themselves, so they just buy them from one of these other rebuilders anyway. I have been paying around $100 for rebuilt starters and alternators and have never had one fail within 100k miles. What kind of problems have you had?