Hi, recently purchased my 1996, car drove normal during test drive, but two days after getting it back I started to hear a loud grinding noise during start up occasionally, it doesn't happen every time, mostly when car is warm. I'm starting to worry that my starter can go out soon, any suggestion or idea about how long it can last in this condition? How much I'm expected to pay if I want to change it in a shop? Thanks

 

starter is giving you the warning sign that its going to go soon. only a matter of time. some can last months or even years doing this before they finally stop completely, others can fail in a day or with no warning at all. lucky you your car is talking to you, letting you know its about to go.

unfortunately the starter is in a terrible place on these cars and its a very big very nasty and very expensive job. there is no running away from it unless you want to try to tackle it yourself. if thats the case, godspeed. if not, prepare your anus.......

 

There are many great posts on the R&R process here in the forum. Use the 'search this forum' feature to find the info. If you cannot do it yourself, start getting quotes from various shops. If you don't know of any good, trustworthy shops, ask around. Sometimes the local Autozone, O'Rielys, etc. can steer you in the right direction, but then again, I live in a small farming community and people are pretty helpful. I recently had Toyota do my timing belt and water pump, but I've used them a lot and trust them. They're work has always impressed me and their main mechanic has been with them for over 20 years, which says a lot to me. Anyway, back to the point—don't get stranded in it! My nephew's Cadillac was doing that, and I went and rescued him by laying on the ground and reaching underneath of the car and tapping the started with a hammer. It fired right up, and I told him to get it home and have the starter changed. Did he listen? No! Of course, as Steroerob mentioned, we cannot even reach ours to tap on it—the intake must come off to access it.

 

Thanks, when purchasing the car, I was obssesed with timing belt and didn't realized the starter could be more expensive to fix. But it didn't grind during my testing anyway, only a few extra cranks which I though was caused by sitting too long(~a week, the owner told me). Apart from the starter and a bit rough interior, the suspension and drivetrain are still perfect. I'm thinking about doing the job myself, but not very confident, the only big job I've done was lifting cylinder head from a inline 4 engine, and it took me a while with help from a friend. I doubt if I can finish it in a weekend.

 

I'm worried it will strand me on a journey and hammer can not reach the starter, time for some learning and prepare the job

 

Label and/or bag everything you remove during the R&R process, take pix also. As I mentioned earlier, there are many posts on the topic with great pix of the process.