2014 Minnie Winnie Chevy only randomly starts

[MinWinnie14]

HELP! We have a new to us 2014 Minnie Winnie on a Chevy 3500.

It will start fine, then just not start. It was that if it set for more than 4weeks it wouldn't start, then once started it was fine. The problem seems to be getting worse. Our last camping trip was the first wknd in August.. went to start it yesterday and it wouldn't start. We charged the chassis battery & the house batteries and NOTHING. You can hear the solenoid next to the house batteries clicking, but that's it. We worked on it for hours last night then it started!! My husband drove it for a bit, went and got gas and drove it home. Turned it off, then back on and it started fine!

But today.. once again.. won't start! We are supposed to go camping this wknd for our anniversary. Please help!
Thank you!

[Morich]

Let's make clear? You mean the engine will not crank? Different than cranking but not starting!

There is a starter solenoid down nearer the starter on the engine but the one near the batteries is a diffferent solenoid and when the ignition is turned on, it will click. That is the one which connects both coach and start battery together to chrge the coach while we drive and sounds like it is working okay.
There will be a cable from the chassis/start battery to the solenoid down on or near the starter and there may be connections at large fuses in the path where things get corroded!

When new there were tape markers put on the battery cables and may help to find which one to trace or clean?



Red tape for the one to starter!
It also may be a defect in the starter solenoid or the starter itself! But hope for the more common problem of dirty connections!

[Morich]

Found a drawing for the route of the cable?

It shows no fuses or other connections along the route.

Click this to get a better picture.

[Winterbagoal]

If you can physically access the starter motor, as in get under the vehicle, check that the cable from the upper solenoid/battery to the starter solenoid/motor is securely tightened on the starter motor end of the circuit. It probably has a ring connector on the cable, placed on a short stud sticking out of the starter motor, with a washer and small nut to hold it in place. Sometimes the cold and hot of sitting, then running, causes the metal in the stud/washer/nut to expand and contract and the nut and washer get loose, making a bad connection.

[Winnie14]

We also have a 2014 Minnie Winnie on a Chevy 3500 with the same problem of intermittent not starting. We are the fourth owners and previous owners have tried to fix this problem without success. So far we have not been stranded anywhere, but it is disconcerting to not be able to depend 100% on it starting. We too will be watching for answers. There is obviously a problem that has existed since the chassis was built.

[Winnie14]

I should clarify that our Minnie Winnie that randomly does not start only clicks, nothing cranks or turns over.

[Bo Walker]

Though you charged your batteries, have you checked to make sure your starting battery held the charge?

[Morich]

When it only clicks, it can help to understand why this happens and there can be two reasons.
One point is to know the click is a solenoid clicking. A solenoid is a gizmo that has a coil that makes an electromagnet areound a metal shaft.When it gets powered the shaft moves a large round pice of metal much like a washer against two contacts to make the connection between the battery and the starter. When it moves, we hear it click.

So there are often two things to cause the click but not turn the engine. One obvious one is that the washer has been burned and corroded from arcing each time it makes contact. At some point it gets too bad and totally stops passing the current,so this often requires a starter change as it is built as part of the starter. Different cars have different diesigns.
A second cause can be that the cables fromthe battery to the starter can become dirty/rusty/corroded and just enough power get to the starter to move the soldnoiebut not enough to crank the engine. This can sometimes let the solenoid move to click but once more power is required than it has, it falls off, only to try again so we get click, click, click, until we let the key off. A weak or failing battery can also do this.

Several ways to sort the problem. To make sure it is not a weak battery, try jump starting it with a different car which is running as that tells you the battery is okay and the problem is cable or starter.
Second step can be to connect jumper cables from the car to the starter connections
directly on the solenoid down under the RV. This eliminates the weak battery and dirty/loose cable questions, so you are probably looking at replacing either the starter or at least the solenoid if you still have the problem.

[Winnie14]

The last time it happened, about a month ago, just to be sure it wasn't the battery, we put in a new battery. It didn't make any difference. No cranking at all. It did eventually start, but why, we don't know. Some people have suggested a flat spot in the starter.? Anyhow, when it started, we took off on a 3000 mile trip over 15 days, and it hasn't happened again yet. But it most likely will.

[Winnie14]

Just to be clear, we are the second owners with this problem in this discussion. Peculiar. Thank for the suggestions Morich. It gives a direction to go.

[Morich]

Whether it is the actual problem or not, there is a reason why this can be intermitant.

If we think of the solenoid as being a center metal shaft with something like a washer attached to the end, the washer can get somewhat loose at the end where it is attached to the metal shaft.
As the solenoid pulls the washer up to make contact with the big lugs on each side, there is a small arc just before it makes full contact. That little arc is what starts the corrosion and failure as it burns a small spot. So it may stay in the same place or the washer may get loose enough to rotate just a bit to make the contact at a slightly different spot on the washer.

So does it stay the same spot and fail sooner or does it rotate, make the bad spot move away and work on another spot?
Sometimes when it fails to crank, we can actually work around the problem if we let off on the key and keep trying a few times and hope the problem rotates enough to get a spot on the solenoid washer which is still good enough to work!

Or you can work around a bad solenoid if you think of it as a simple switch. Instead of the contacts on the solenoid making the connection, you can use something really sturdy like a jumper cable or even an old set of channel lock pliers to short the two big lugs together to make the connection.
Note:
The reason I say old channel locks is that it is very possible to get enough arc to ruin them as pliers!

Poor boys, growing up around farm equipment learned to jump under there and hammer the solenoid!!
City boys were real proud but they couldn't fix their cars worth a flip!

[Winnie14]

Thanks again for the suggestions. We will work on these.

[realvietvet]

Originally Posted by MinWinnie14

HELP! We have a new to us 2014 Minnie Winnie on a Chevy 3500.

It will start fine, then just not start. It was that if it set for more than 4weeks it wouldn't start, then once started it was fine. The problem seems to be getting worse. Our last camping trip was the first wknd in August.. went to start it yesterday and it wouldn't start. We charged the chassis battery & the house batteries and NOTHING. You can hear the solenoid next to the house batteries clicking, but that's it. We worked on it for hours last night then it started!! My husband drove it for a bit, went and got gas and drove it home. Turned it off, then back on and it started fine!

But today.. once again.. won't start! We are supposed to go camping this wknd for our anniversary. Please help!
Thank you!

Know of similar experience. Much trouble shooting, eventually narrowed down to wiring harness. Fuse in harness. Actually was a fusable link in the starter relay portion of the of the harness. Service department would not just check the fuses in the harness, because the OBD did not throw a code for that. Common sense is gone. All the trouble shooting and replacement of the complete wiring harness added up to a couple of thousand dollars. Friend of mine checked the wire harness and in about 15 minutes found the bad link. New link would cost about $2.50. The friend this happened to didn't insist that the mechanic (ops now days they are techs) track the problem properly. All they wanted to do was rely on the OBD.

[Morich]

Originally Posted by realvietvet

Know of similar experience. Much trouble shooting, eventually narrowed down to wiring harness. Fuse in harness. Actually was a fusable link in the starter relay portion of the of the harness. Service department would not just check the fuses in the harness, because the OBD did not throw a code for that. Common sense is gone. All the trouble shooting and replacement of the complete wiring harness added up to a couple of thousand dollars. Friend of mine checked the wire harness and in about 15 minutes found the bad link. New link would cost about $2.50. The friend this happened to didn't insist that the mechanic (ops now days they are techs) track the problem properly. All they wanted to do was rely on the OBD.

Fully agree with this after experience with a Ford Focus. The diagnisics said bad battery, so even thought they had agreed the battery was good and added a really large charger to when trying to start, it was intermitant and they wanted to change the battery!
They never found the problem and we sold them the car as we were selling the RV and did not need it as tow car! Their best answer was that the battery was not staying charged----even with a charger on it!