[FIXED] 2000 Chrysler T&C Starting Problem

2000 Chrysler Town and Country 3.3L. When cold, starter would crank the engine over for maybe half a second or so and then stop before engine could fire/run. On retry, it would stop cranking again after a half second or less. Seemed to be plenty of power, headlights bright and everything. After 4 or 5 attempts the starter would crank the engine over and started the engine. I shut the engine off and attempted to restart, and it restarted fine. I went ahead and took the battery (about 6 months old) to Advance Auto and they verified it had a full charge. I reinstalled the battery and attempted to start again the (now cold again) engine. Again it reverted to cranking for about a half second, then stopped before engine could fire. I retried and engine started all right, but now the starter would not DISENGAGE and just kept cranking the running engine. I quickly turned the key to the OFF position, and engine shut down but starter continued cranking and would not disengage. I pulled the starter relay but the starter would still not disengage and kept cranking the engine. I grabbed a wrench and unhooked the negative battery cable, and the starter finally quit cranking.

I suspect the problem is the starter motor itself. The fact that turning the key off when the engine was running and the starter would not disengage but the fuel did cut off and shut down the engine indicates to me that the ignition switch is probably OK. The fact that I pulled the starter relay and the starter still would not disengage indicates to me that the relay is OK ( I bench-tested the relay and it is apparently OK).

I can touch the negative cable to the battery with key off and relay out and starter cranks.

Based on the attached Mitchell circuit diagram, I'd say at this point we call a bad starter because the last remaining possibility, at least that I can think of, is that the solenoid is stuck closed meaning power flows to the starter as long as battery is connected.

Do you guys concur, or have I possibly missed something?

Come to think of it, one other possible thing to eliminate is the brown wire to starter solenoid being shorted to power. I doubt this though, because when I touch the neg batt cable to the neg batt post all I hear is the engine cranking; I do not hear the starter re-engaging the flywheel. Still an easy check once I am under the car so I will go ahead and check that.

Before you start replacing things, check you grounds G115 and G113. If they look clean, clean them anyways. I've had this problem on a newer (2010 I think) Chrysler Van and cleaning the grounds fixed it. HTH

unhook the starter battery wire which would be the red wire and check for power there. should have it. next unhook brown wire at starter check and see if you have power on that wire only when in crank. if you have power on that wire all the time even with the relay out id suspect the wire to be shorted to power

popoften wrote: Come to think of it, one other possible thing to eliminate is the brown wire to starter solenoid being shorted to power. I doubt this though, because when I touch the neg batt cable to the neg batt post all I hear is the engine cranking; I do not hear the starter re-engaging the flywheel. Still an easy check once I am under the car so I will go ahead and check that.

You read my mind! This is the last thing I'd do before sticking a fork in the starter.

I have seen this symptom before - when another tech was installing a starter, and installed the solenoid wire in such a way that it always touched the B+ post. Thus, when he went to reconnect the battery, it cranked! :lol:

Tyler wrote: I have seen this symptom before - when another tech was installing a starter, and installed the solenoid wire in such a way that it always touched the B+ post. Thus, when he went to reconnect the battery, it cranked! :lol:

If that happened to me, it would freak me out :ohmy:

I finally had a chance to get under the car today and see what is up with the brown wire (wire from the ignition switch ). It shows battery voltage only when the key is in the crank position. When key is in anything other than crank, it shows open. Even with brown wire unplugged, key in OFF position, and battery cable hooked up to starter, the starter will crank if I connect the terminals to the battery.

It seems to me, then, what we have here is a starter solenoid stuck in the closed position, and since the solenoid is internal to the starter I am looking at replacing the starter.

Do you guys concur?

Completely! Put a starter in 'er.

Got the new starter in, and she roars to life like a champ!

Thanks again, guys!

~pop

Yay! I'm sure it cranks only when desired now :lol:

Thank you for posting the fix!

Quite so!

A postscript -- once I had the starter out I thought I would see if it would crank by just hooking up the battery cable to the main post of the starter and to battery positive, and from battery negative to the starter case. I figured it would crank just as it had when it was still installed in the truck. For some reason, it didn't.

I did not give it any more of a post mortem than that. I am just glad the new one works and the old one went back as a core return.

I thought about asking if you happened to look at off the car. Interesting that the symptom went away... I'm guessing the wherever the short was got disturbed during starter removal? Not that you were rough with it, just from handling and such.

I guess it's good you didn't go tapping on the starter during diagnosis - the problem might have gone away, and you'd be left scratching your head :lol: