Starter Motor

[simon auris 2.0]

Hello all,

How long should the starter stay engaged? My 09 plate 2.0 won't turn over for more than a second or 2 and isn't starting when cold. I hold the ignition in the start position and it cuts out so have to keep cycling, is this a new fanged feature to prevent the starter motor running for too long? The engine is making no attempt to fire up and the starter motor stops.

I may need new glow plugs as they are original and also read about the scv being a problem with this engine. Last year it became harder to start in winter but a few tanks of redex cured that however it is way more difficult to start now and it's not as cold.

I've also got the common problem with the air con rattle so this is going to be an expensive month.

Cheers for and advice.

Simon.

[TomdeGuerre]

It could be a faulty solenoid on your starter motor. Pre-engaged starter motors have a solenoid which draws the pinion gear into mesh with the flywheel ring gear before the armature starts turning. This avoids the gear tooth damage you get with the inertia type starter where the armature spins first and the pinion rides up a helix to engage with the flywheel ring gear .

I don't know which particular starter is on your car but, generally, the solenoid switch has two windings, one is the pull−in winding and the other is the hold−in winding. Once the starter starts turning the pull-in windings are de-energised and the hold-in windings are supposed to take over, keeping the starter engaged. It seems to me that your solenoid hold-in windings are not working as they should. Depending on mileage etc it may be best to go for a replacement starter motor.

[simon auris 2.0]

Well the starter comment could be right, something odd about how it doesn't keep cranking. It turns a second or 2, coughs and the starter cuts out but sometimes then runs again with no audible attempt from the engine to fire.

Just now it's very cold out and 8 attempts before it fired, idled it for 10 seconds and shut it down. Half hour later it started perfectly, no hesitation. I thought it could be fuel starvation on startup but it all seems odd to me. My 94 Punto was a doddle compared to new diesels!

I'm going to have to take it in, either to Toyota or a local garage, I can change the scv easily myself but it's not going to save me much if I then have to use Toyota to reprogram the ecu for the higher pressure. I may be reong is believing Toyota are likely to know more than a local garage? I don't want to keep paying for someone's guesses to what may be wrong.

Weird considering how cold it is, the glow plugs only stayed on 2 seconds, all 7 further attempts the light flicked on barely enough to see it?

[simon auris 2.0]

As there's been no further advice I'd better post what I tried and the result.

The scv was easy to find so I took that out and found it moved freely in the body, I took the circlip out and dismantled to have a look seeing as I could. No scuffs or anything obvious but I polished it with garnet paper in the lathe. Once reassembled it felt no different but at least I tried something.

While I had tools out I spotted the egr and thought that would be easy to remove for a look inside. The pipe was clear so expected the valve to be the same but found both side ports on the mounting to be blocked solid with very oily soot (was like black grease), only the square middle port was open. The valve body was coated to about 2mm with loose dry soot so cleaned off and sprayed with brake cleaner.

When all put back the car started once primed.

Next day was a very hard frost and it fired 1st turn so now back to normal.

No idea what cured the problem but zero cost for the starting problem.

[Aidsy1]

Speaking of the egr. I have fitted a blanking plate and had no problems in the cold, has helped with economy too. Was I my getting about 40mpg or so before, am now getting about 48 or so