The opening part of this series laid out how the starter motor works, set the thing in the context of its electrical supply and suggested a few eyes-and-ears checks as the first steps in ...

Q. I've just finished installing a rebuilt starter on my '99 Toyota Tacoma; the old one had shorted out and would not disengage. However, the new one will not engage. It just makes a soft click when ...

Starter motors sit at the center of every modern ignition, yet most drivers only notice them when the key twist leads to silence. I want to unpack what that small electric motor actually does, how it ...

You hop in your Dodge diesel and turn the key only to be greeted with a click-click sound, instead of the more familiar whirring of your starter motor. Something is wrong. You somehow knew that the ...

There are about a thousand and one sounds a car can make when it’s deteriorating toward failure. You’ve got clunks from broken suspension parts, the hiss of a spent radiator, and brop, brop, brop of a ...