Trouble shoot this.
 

Ok, so the wife drives an 00' Nissan Sentra that's a good car. For the last month when you try to start the car for the first start of the day it makes a weird noise (starter oriented). Not grinding, but just an abnormal noise, and then starts up.
Last week it was really cold outside, we go out to start the car, and it won't start. It sounds like the starter is spinning, it just doesn't seem to be contacting the flywheel. I'm thinking bad starter.
Today I go out and just let the starter spin for a couple seconds. I do this maybe 10 times until the car starts to slowly putt, then it fires. Drove it around, seemed fine. Now it's warm, shut it off, and it fires right up.
I opened the oil cap while it was running because I was gonna put some lucas in it, and there is alot of air coming out of the oil filler cap hole. After warm up the car seems to be fine starting, idleing, driving, these are just all of the visual things I see.
Now I'm thinking it could be the original battery is just slowly going out on me because once the car warms up, you can shut it down and start it no problem. I just don't want the wife to get stranded somewhere after the car has been sitting in the cold or something. (well, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. :-X ;D)


Battery?


(thanks for reading my novel)

Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

Battery sounds right. Just roll down to pep boys and see if it's any good

Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

The starter is spinning, but the motor is not?
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Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

theres some corrosion around the neg terminal. I took it off and cleaned it, but I just want to make sure before I spend money to make sure what I'm fixing is correct. I say starter or battery, but the car started right back up numerous times after running for a couple minutes.
Also, the oil cap filler hole and the air coming out of it struck me a little weird too. That was just an observation I made, but the car is running and everything fine. No leaks, nothing, just lots of air coming out of there when running. ???

Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

You're rings are shot. Go get a new motor. :P

If the starter was spinning and not the motor, I would say it's the starter.
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Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

It sounds as if the starter is spinning, but the solenoid isn't kicking it out to contact the flywheel. But after the car runs for a little while, I can start and stop her as many times I want, which leads me to think that it's not the starter, but the power to the starter after a cold night.

Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

see, that's what the hell happens when you move to cold places like minnie soda. the hmt socal crew educated me on the fact that if you have air coming out your oil filler deal you have mad blow by.

and what the hell are you doing putting lucas into your cars? didn't you see the thread on how crappy that stuff is for anything other than tractors?

Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

...but that's what all the Minniesodians are doing and Steve just wants to fit in with his new neighbors. :P
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Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

I agree. Most likely the starter going out.
You can have your battery tested at most auto parts stores to rule that out.
Good luck.

Re:Trouble shoot this.
 

If the battery was bad then you wouldn't have the same problem for a month. If you can hear the starter spinning that means that it is getting power, I think that it may be like you said, the solenoid.

One other thing. It hasn't even begun to get cold. The lowest so far was like 35. There will be weeks at a time steve where it doesn't get above 0. Those are the times when you can tell who has maintained their car well.