Think Your Car’s Starter Is Out? Try This First, It Could Save You Thousands

LOUISIANA - Unfortunately, vehicle problems are inevitably going to happen. They're an obvious inconvenience, and more often than not, these inconveniences are usually quite costly.

Most of us have somewhat limited knowledge as to what could be wrong with our vehicles when something suddenly goes wrong, and most of us are at the mercy of mechanics.

I'm absolutely not saying mechanics are unscrupulous, because the overwhelming majority throughout Acadiana are certainly not.

If you ever get into your vehicle and hear the dreaded "tick tick tick tick", your first thought is you probably have a dead battery, and all you need is a quick jump to get you moving along to buy another one.

But what if your car still won't start, and the engine still clicks after trying to jump it? Does it definitely mean your starter is dead or that something else is wrong? Well, it could, but hopefully not.

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I got lucky recently with my two son's trucks, both having this exact same problem, and there's something really simple and easy you can check that will hopefully solve your problem and save you serious money.

Is It The Starter Or The Battery?

OK, so here's what happened with my son's trucks this past week.

On Friday, my oldest son sent me a video of his truck not starting, asking if I had any ideas as to what could be going on. All the interior lights came on, the headlights were shining bright, but when he turned the key, there was a loud clicking noise. Not the normal quick clicking sounds normally associated with dead car batteries, but a slower, more ominous-sounding clicking noise.

I told him I would drive to his house the next day to see if we could jump it. The weather the next day was terrible, so I told him I'd swing by Sunday to see if we could figure it out.

Well, Sunday morning, I woke up to a text from my other son asking if I could take him to work that morning because his truck wouldn't start. Thankfully, he was parked at my other son's house.

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I went to see about both their trucks, and interestingly, both trucks were having the same issue, with neither of their trucks able to be jumped.

Could it be possible that both of their starters went out at the same time? This didn't seem reasonable to me at all. We then checked all of the fuses in my oldest son's truck, and no fuses were blown.

I checked the positive and negative terminals on both truck batteries, and they seemed tight and very well connected with no corrosion. OK, so now what? Has to be the starters in both trucks, right?

This is where I got extremely lucky.

As I'm talking to my oldest son about possible theories about what could be wrong, I had my left hand on the battery terminals, just passively wiggling and checking things when I noticed something.

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Although the negative terminal was tight on the post and not moving when I tried to wiggle it, the nut holding the terminal to the post was loose. I cranked down on the nut, tightened it all of the way, and boom...the truck started right up.

Quickly I check my other son's negative terminal, and it was the same situation. The terminal was tight on the post, but the nut wasn't snug. I tightened it and once again, the truck started right up.

I was only about 10 minutes away from calling a tow truck, but thankfully the fix was easy and cost nothing.

The moral of the story? If your car won't start and jumping it won't start either, check to make sure the nuts on the terminals are all the way tight on both the positive and the negative terminals and hopefully you vehicle will start right up!