By
bhp02, June 17, 2014
my mom's 2003 corolla, the starter just went today, I was in a rush, so went to dealer
for about $400 Canadian. 75k kilometers.
Mine was bought in 2002, I have over 220k kilometers now.
I'm getting worried that some day this thing is going to strand me too.
On avg, how long do these last ??
Thanks.
Great question, I have been curious about this as well. I remember replacing them on my old Chevy's every few years, but don't seem to hear much about starter failure any more.
until they don't start anymore. lol. I really don't know the answer but what can be done is to buy a re-manufactured starter and have it on "tap" so if yours does go then you are not scrambling for another one and install it yourself and save some dollaz
Hard question to answer - lots of things factor in as far as component lifespan is concerned. Most influential factor is the number of starting and stopping of engine / runtimes. If you do a lot of short duration driving with lots of start and stops - lifespan of the starter can drop below average. I've seen starters go out as soon as 10K miles, some run 400K miles and still run. Where this line is drawn it hard to say.
In almost all my cars, with almost 700K miles covered over 7 vehicles, majority of the driving being highway - commuting to and from locations - I've yet to replace a starter on them (all imports). The exceptions being my GM muscle cars - pretty common to replace those starters on nearly yearly basis - due to heat soak from the exhaust manifolds. Even running a starter blanket - they still get cooked.
Corolla starters, especially the older nippondenso ones , would go about 100,000-200000+ miles before i would have to change the contacts . $4 worth of parts and i would get another 100,000 miles or more. I did this on 2 cars and never replaced a whole starter. My OEM one had about 215000 on it before i worked on it the first time. My point is to NEVER buy a rebuilt starter. Bite the $400 bullit and buy an OEM new unit if you are keeping the car 3+ years..
The white grease on the solenoid plunger gets sticky over time, especially when colder. I had cleaned and greased it and the planetary gears, etc in my original starter. It worked well again for a while, until the plunger's brass terminals got too worn down to activate starter at about 100,000 miles. I consistently use the starter very frequently.
The new tested TYC starter with lifetime warranty I then got is still more powerful than the original NipponDenso unit ever was, now with over 70,000 miles on it.
what manufacturer is TYC ??
thanks
TYC Brother Industrial Co., Ltd, Taiwan
http://www.tyc.com.tw/lan_en/products.php?class_sn=3
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=1376826&cc=1432914
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1432914,parttype,4152
K_Watson
Mine died at 110,000. The solenoid was used up and you had to turn the key a few times before it would find a good spot and come to life.
I needed it fixed to get to work reliably so I bought a reman from work vs rebuilding it.
