My VL was stolen on Monday. The gearbox and engine were in near perfect condition as the previous owners were an old couple who never thrashed the car around and it was regularly serviced, without fail, every 5000kms.
The car was found the very next day, rather quick for the ACT police force , dead battery and drained of petrol. Since this I have put petrol in and a new battery. Problem is, the car just will not turn over. All that happens is that the power goes on, lights CD player etc all work.
I have checked fuses and they are all fine.
Is it possible that they just fried the starter motor? And that's all that needs fixing?
I'm really only just getting into the mechanical side of cars now but always been into them so I pretty much know nothing.
Any ideas?
Some original photos have not been recovered yet.
Did that. Sparked quite nicely.
Tried to start it. Then the windscreen wipers came on.
I probably should have mentioned that they ripped out the wiper control cluster face, but i managed to turn them off.
Still no start.
Any other suggestions?
Nah no idea. The cops said they had a pretty good idea who stole it as there have been a number of thefts in the same area.
They stole it from a major shopping center in broad daylight.
I got a Tupac CD and a huge fire extinguisher out of it though.
Anyways....back on topic.
It was supposed to spark right?
What does the starter motor sound like if its working?
Grab a test lamp and check for power at the starter motor, I wouldn't recommend earthing a live power feed with a screw driver, lets just hope you didn't burn anything out.
When you turn the key does everything else dim (like dash lights and everything) and do you hear the starter click?
Might be worth tapping the stater motor with a rubber mallet while someone else cranks the car.
How did they steal the car? Didn't mess around with the ignition barrell or any wiring did they?
I don't have a test lamp on hand but I can get one.
Yes everything dims and I can hear the starter click.
As far as I can tell, no wires were touched and the ignition barrel is fine.
Have a multimeter handy? Give the battery a quick test. While your at it clean up all the terminals with some hot water and maybe a bit of sand paper.
If you are getting full voltage to the starter motor, and it clicks then I would suggest changing it.
Edit: Clicks once I meant to say.
On second look, the lights don't dim. Must have been my imagination.
The starter motor clicks like normal but that's as far as it goes.
Oh also the battery terminals got extremely hot very very fast.
The ignition is probably stuffed. I'll just get someone to look at it. Someone who knows more than me.
Thanks everyone.
if they're heating up its mean theres massive current draw through it, could be a short somewhere. look for any extra cabling around the starter that shouldn't be there. they may have jumped your car that way and left something there thats now shorting out.
I would put my money on the starter motor. Have been told that if the battery terminals, and +b cables coming off the battery heat up real quick when trying to crank that its an internal short in the starter motor drawing excessive current or something like that.
Would be best to have things tested with a multimeter first though.
take out your starter motor, (only takes about 10 minutes)
whip it down to an auto sparky and have them throw it on a test bench (takes another 10 minues, they'll probably do it for free)
the clicking you can hear is not the actual motor it is the solenoid. once the solenoid has engaged the gears it joins two contacts and the motor spins. if your starter motor has a short in it (probably from dead brushes clogging it all up) then the battery contacts will heat up like that.
my money is on a short in the motor.
this would explain how it killed your other battery so i'd say you can thank your dead starter motor for getting you your car back
Some original photos have not been recovered yet.
