Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting SVT starting problem

Well, I had to get a ride to work this morning. Tried to start the SVT and all I get is a sort of grinding, whirling sound. What a horrible sound!

In my best judgement, it must be something to do with the starter not connecting properly with the flywheel. Hopefully the starter has just been knocked loose or something and I can tighten the bolts. I think there was a thread with a similar problem on here recently, I will try to find it as well.

Looks like it is going to be a long weekend. Any suggestions?

Same thing happened to me.

The good news...
If you roll your car a little bit or rock it back in forth in gear, you can usually get the started to engage the flywheel and start the car. You can also roll start it if you park on a hill.

The bad news...
Your starter is messed up. I am not sure if you can fix them, I just replaced mine. The part was $150. Its kind of in an awkward place under the intake manifold and takes some creative wiggling to get in and out. Remove your battery tray and you will have a clear path to it. Also have a 13mm gear wrench to get at the two bolts.

This is usually a sticking bendix in the starter.

Do not grind it too much or you will need a flywheel too!

before you buy a new starter take the old one off and have somebody turn the crank a full rotation and you watch the flywheel. this will be hard to do and you must use a flash light but what you are checking for is to make sure the flywheel and the ring gear are still contected to together. as you turn the crank you will see the gear and a gap if the the two come apart from each other. it should look like the gear is warped. if the doesnt show just replace the starter

I actually replaced the starter yesterday. It wasn't too bad of a job, but sort of a pain. Took about 3 hours from start to finish, but I could probably do it again in 1/3 of that time.

Surprisingly the old starter didn't appear have anything wrong with it. The teeth may have been just slightly warn, if at all. The flywheel also shows minimal signs of wear, and may need to be replaced in the not so distant future (Fidanza? ). I was actually thinking that the new starter would not make any difference based on the appearance of the old starter. However, the car started right up, so it must have been a bad starter, who knows . It's fixed for now though.

yea, when i pulled my old one out and looked at it I thought it looked fine, but once the new one was on car started right up