nfb: need help with daily driver...w/in

[LoudLT1]

my daily driver has been giving me problems lately. i guess i should be surprised since i put about 325 miles on it a week. anyway its a 95 chevy lumina 3.1 liter sedan automatic. i started having problems starting it about three months ago. when i would turn the key to start the car nothing would happen. it would start up after several attempts. so i got checker to check my battery and alternator, they said no problems. they said most to take the starter off and get it checked. i did and they said it was toast. since it was the OEM starter and was 9 years old i had no complaints. anyway i get a new starter not the refurbished that was 30 DLLs less. i have no problems for about 3 weeks and then the same thing starts happening. i take the starter off and go get it checked and its bad? 3 weeks and its bad wow. So I get the free replacement since its a lifetime warranty on it. I get the new starter on and everything is OK for one week. then same thing starts happening. I turn the key and nothing happens after 3-10 times I try it finally starts. OK yesterday I replaced the starter again for the second time (two new starters) with another replacement and today its does it again. I'm going crazy here. I'm starting to think I might not know what's I'm doing. what can it be? Ignition? this model already has the chip on the key. Might that be the problem? I cant see me getting three bad starters from auto zone maybe? please help.....if it is the ignition HOW can i CLEAN the inside of the ignition? Anyone done that? I'm going nuts here...
thanks in advance for any and all info..
Regards,
Ed

[Joe 1320]

Ed,

We need to nail down a few things. The started is only responsable for turning over the motor. Starters do take a considerable amount of current to operate. Any additional load on the starter such as friction from incorrect meshing of the gears, high friction in the engine such as parts interferance, abnormally long cranking periods etc. all take their toll on the starter.

When you say they are bad, how? Is the same auto parts store testing each one? What is your battery voltage while cranking? If the same store keeps testing them and they keep showing as bad, most likely the rebuilder had a bad batch. Rebuilt parts can be a crap shoot. The el-cheapo outfits take an core and rebuild it, but replacing only the previously bad parts only. If a part seems good at the moment, they leave it alone. The problem is that those parts are usually marginal and will fail soon. I've seen an entire batch of alternators where one by one, they failed until it was noticed that they were all the same batch. The rebuilder was using a defective (unknown) replacement part that failed too soon.

IMHO, since this appears to be a pattern, I would pull the starter one last time and pay up the differance to a NEW starter. If that fails, there is most likely a meshing problem with the drive drive gear or perhaps even a wiring problem. Usually on a wiring problem the starter tests fine.