My 1997 Kia Sportage may be about to be down for the long count. The most recent issue: when I start the car, it starts to catch, and then whirs. It may do this 2 or 3 times before it catches finally. It started doing this suddenly within the past 3 weeks or so.
I seem to remember from Car Talk that this is serious, maybe the gears between the starter motor and the engine are shot and need to be replaced. That sounds expensive.
Anyone here who can confirm or correct, and/or give a broad estimate of cost?
possibly a bad run of teeth on the ring gear (the large gear mounted on the engine flywheel/flexplate,) but problems with those usually are caused by several adjacent teeth getting their edges “chipped” off. then the symptom is a grinding noise when you try to start.
I’d look at the starter; possibly the overrunning clutch in the pinion drive is broken.
The reason I ask is that there are several maintenance issues on this car, and together with something new and big (possibly like this) would make a new car purchase look ever more attractive.
if it’s indeed the starter, replacements are well under $100. If it does happen to be the ring gear, that gets expensive because replacing it involves removing the transaxle. lots of labor there.
A remanufactured starter for a '97 Sportage can be found at O’Reilly Auto Partsfor about $65. According to Repair Pal (for my area, I don’t know your zip code), the labor should run $130 to $165.
Replacing a starter on most vehicles is a relatively cheap and easy fix.
Another vote for checking the starter. I seem to recall a nearly flat battery can have a similar symptom–enough juice to make the starter motor/gear spin, but not enough to move that gear onto the flywheel teeth. Might be wrong there, though.
If your flywheel teeth are damaged it can be a bit of a pain to replace because you have to drop the transmission to get at it. But it also seems a bit unlikely. if you’re missing one or two teeth such that the starter can’t engage them, it seems like it would NEVER engage them because there is no way to turn the flywheel and expose some good teeth to the starter gear.
the V8 Cayenne mounts the starter inside the vee of the engine, so you have to take the entire intake system off of the engine. oh, and you will have to do this sooner or later once the plastic coolant pipes running through the vee crack and leak.
My 65 Ford has been doing the exact same thing for the last 25 years.