I am having a very frustrating issue with my car and was hoping someone with a little more Audi experiance than me can suggest something.
The issue is the starter. When trying to start the car, sporatically the starter will not fully engage, just spins freely, but on the second try it always starts. If is sits again for a couple of minutes, it does the same again. When it does spin freely, when I let go of the key to stop cranking and the starter stops spinning, there is a "thud" sound. Almost like a gear of some sort dissengaging.

The most frustrating part is that I already had the starter out twice, the first time to get it rebuilt (which didn't help anything) and a second several months later (to install a brand new solenoid).
In additional I put in a brand new battery in May, and a week ago installed a brand new ignition switch (the eletrical part).
I'm not driving the car very much and it is parked most of the time.

I' am trying to sell the car and this is just causing me to throw more money into it.

The battery cables are all good/clean and there is a trickle charge on the battery at all times keeping it full.

Am I buying a new complete starter?

Thanks,

JR

 

Well I pulled the starter after getting home from work today and tested it on the bench. Now I'm really stumped...It works fine. One thing I noticed is that when the gear gets pulled out be the solenoid when jumping the starter, it is not with a lot of force. What I mean is it is pretty easy to push the gear back in with a piece of wood. I hpoe all that makes sense.

Any ideas?

JR

 

Well found the problem...it was the starter drive. Will pick up a new one tomorrow, put the starter back together and be up and running again.

JR

 

Sure enough it was the drive...a $17 part that caused me to pull my hair out for almost a year. The strange thing is when I took the old drive out and mounted it in a vise and tried to spin it back with a pipe wrench, it did not move, which was good. The only way it lost grab was while it was spinning in the starter. Even the owner of the shop who sold me the brand new replacement drive couldn't believe it and was sure the old one was good.

JR