Recently at Auto Studio a BMW X5 was brought in after the customer had experienced starting issues.

Symptoms:

• Car not starting

 What can cause a car not to start?

There can be many reasons why a car will not start. The most common cause is a flat or low voltage battery, if this is the case a rapid clicking will occur at low voltage or nothing at all at below the voltage threshold. Another cause could be a blown fuse or a bad starter.

How to fix a car that will not start?

After the car was inspected it was found that the starter was faulty. To identify this, the battery was first checked by checking the voltage and health where it returned 100%. Next was to check the starter motor by testing the wire from the ignition switch (Figure 1). For this to be possible the intake manifold needed to be removed (Figure 2). After the key was in the start position the starter was receiving voltage, therefore it became apparent that the starter motor was faulty.

fig1

fig2