Why won’t my car start?

Have you ever had your car just “dead” on you, try to start it and it just won’t start? You end up calling a tow truck and paying those big towing bills, then to make matters worse the shop guy tells you it will cost hundreds of dollars to get it working again, is that true? Maybe, maybe not.

I own and work as a Diagnostic Technician here at Ace Automotive in Lakewood Wa and I can tell you from experience that if some people knew a little more about how their cars work they could save a lot of money. Let’s say, for example, you are driving at night with your wipers and heater, lights and radio on and you notice the headlights getting dimmer and sooner or later the vehicle “dies” and now won’t start, the most likely cause it’s that the alternator has failed, not the battery because if the battery were to fail, the alternator would still hold power to the vehicle until you shut it off and then it wouldn’t restart.

You are driving for a while and the car just “goes off”, all the instrument lights come on, but when you try to start it, it just cranks but won’t start. First it depends on the type of car this happened to, if it was an import like for example Honda, acura, toyota, subaru, nissan, mitubishi the engine timing belt may have broken (if it’s been over 60 000 miles since last changed). ) you should be able to tell if when you try to start the engine it sounds different, like it’s just “free spinning” faster than normal, this is bad because most of the import cars mentioned will cause expensive engine damage when the timing belt breaks .

If your vehicle is a domestic chevy ford etc please be patient wait a bit maybe 30-45 minutes and try to start it if it starts yay! But it will “die” again once it’s warm enough again, be sure to tell your local repairman this valuable information and order any parts they replace to fix your vehicle to let them know you know something about the car too.