!: My Car Won't Start and Makes a Clicking Noise

Nothing is more aggravating than walking out to your car Monday morning and finding it won't start. Instead, all you hear is a click noise when turn the ignition key. What's the problem?

If you are unfamiliar with how a car works, you might immediately assume the clicking noise means the engine is dead. It is obvious that power is being turned on, so the lack of even a vibration or jerk would indicate the engine is frozen up, right? Fortunately, the answer is no. Instead, you have an equally aggravating problem somewhere in your starter assembly, but the good news is it will cost a lot less to fix.

There could be a myriad of problems when you hear a clicking noise when starting a car. The first step is to start with the easy things. Check to see if your battery has a charge. Next, check the battery cables to make sure the hookups are not corroded. Corrosion can put a damper of the flow of electrical current and can be the entire problem.

If everything looks okay, the problem may be the solenoid. The what?! The solenoid is essentially a switch that turns the starter on and off. When your car is just sitting off in the driveway, the solenoid is receiving a current from the battery, but it does not pass it on to the starter. When you flip the ignition, a small current signals the solenoid to let the current through to the starter. The starter then turns over. When you have a solenoid that is going bad, the switch can get tweaked and not let the current through correctly. Since the electrical current isn't enough to fire up the starter, the engine doesn't fire. In some cars, it just makes a clicking noise.

Assuming your solenoid is okay, the problem is most likely going to be your starter. The starter takes a lot of strain when it turns over the car. Sooner or later, it is going to have problems. The starter is usually very sensitive to human emotions. If it senses you need to get somewhere in a hurry, it will usually choose that moment to go bad!

Is there some easy way to tell what the problem is? Well, easy is a relative term, but you can do a bypass test. The idea is to bypass the solenoid with the electrical current from the battery. If the starter terms normally, the solenoid is the problem. If it doesn't, the starter is the problem.

You'll notice I didn't mention anything about testing the ignition switch. It is very rare for them to go bad. If you hear clicking when you turn the ignition on, the problem is not the ignition for the very reason that you are hearing something!

A car that won't start is a pain in the derriere. That being said, fixing it is usually not expensive, so things could definitely be worse.