Frozen Starter?

Joined
Dec 2, 2008
Location
Palmer Alaska
TDI
2002 Jetta TDI , 91 Jetta diesel,94 jetta diesel
Guys:
I left my car at the airport in Anchorage for 26hr durring which it snowed about one foot of fresh snow and with temps hovering around 0 degrees F. I went to start the car, glow plug light came on normally, so far so good, attempted to engage the starter and nothing. No dead battery click no nothing ( I thought maybe the clutch switch might have been stuck preventing the starter engagement). Ended up bump starting the car with a tow rope and a friend with a Pickup. Drove home and put my car in a warm garage and the next morning everything was back to normal. Drove the car today and the starter worked just fine. Now I'm spooked about leaving the car once again overnight in the cold. I did replace this starter about a week ago with a rebuild from Schucks and was pleased with how it worked the first week where I did start the car at -5 F with no hesitation. Do I still have a problem? Should I have bought a better quality rebuilt starter? Its always something...
 

PDJetta

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Nov 6, 2003
Location
Northern Virginia
TDI
'04 Jetta GLS TDI Pumpe Duce Platinum Grey w/ Leather
How old is the battery? If it is five years or older, I would suggest replacing it with the proper 80 amp hour one from the dealer (should be about $110). That may be the problem, and I would try that first.

--Nate
 
Joined
Dec 2, 2008
Location
Palmer Alaska
TDI
2002 Jetta TDI , 91 Jetta diesel,94 jetta diesel
My battery is less than a year old and I serviced it when I installed the rebuilt starter. I also clean both ground points, the one under the battery tray and also the ground located on the engine block close to the temp sensors and I cleaned the battery terminals. I did drive to work in a nasty snow storm and am thinking I may have had some snow melt and drip down onto the starter and maybe somehow invade the bendix on the starter but I'm just guessing. My son just left to go skiing in my TDI and it started as good as i ever has (that's coming from a warm garage).
 
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