Dave Crellin

For the last year or so, my '96 C4 has failed to start on occasion. I've posted on here for advice, and never really been able to track the cause, and neither has the mechanic. Until, perhaps now.

On the occasions that it occurs, the symptoms are that all dash light come on, but no cranking and the immobilizer/alarm is not triggered. Mostly, a jump-start will enable the car to start, and often it will start again after a few mins. Happens hot or cold. No background drains on the car. It's had a new starter, alternator, battery and other things recently.

When in the shop for a sway-bar link replacement, it happened! A new starter relay appears to have resolved it, but I'm not sure.

Anyone else with similar symptoms? Anyone else had a starter relay fail, and what were the symptons that pointed to that replacement?

BobbyT

You could have some invisible corrosion on the battery connections, or a marginal battery. I would clean and tighten both battery terminals, and the ground strap to car body connection. If the problem persists, try a new battery.

Dave Crellin

Thanks Bobby. Did that, but it still happened.

Jim @ EuroWerks

How about corrosion in the groung cable . We've replaced several .

the_buch

I had an intermittent and quite rare problem with starting that took months to duplicate with the voltmeters in place and turned out to be a slight break in the narrow gauge wire leading through the harness from the ignition to the starter relay in the relay box. The break would separate under certain (mostly temperature) conditions and cause the problem. We ended up wiring in parallel rather than going through the harness. Good luck,