08 Plate Eleganza. When the weather is damp the starter always whines on startup and can get embarrassing. The other day I got a loud crank with a plume of smoke and thought it's time to get the starter replaced.
Dropped the car to a machanic and he replaced with the 'cheapo' RTX starter from ECP. Took it round the block and parked up. Turned key and just heard the starter spin and didn't fire. WTF!!
Waited for 30 secs and tried again and it fired up. Drove straight to the mechanic and ask him if he replaced the starter with a unit that had same number of teeth on bendix gear. Now the not so funny part, he already sent my original part to ECP to get some extra surcharge money. These cheap RTX units don't have a surcharge so he was making extra money.
He said my starter ring was a little worn and I told him straight my original starter always fired the car and never had any issues so it's BS. We called ECP and they counted 10 teeth on my original bendix versus 8 teeth on the cheap RTX crap.
I ended up ordering a remanufactured Remy starter for £85 and had the mechanic swap out. No issues so far with the Remy unit and the start-up sounds just like the original part. The RTX units have a high pitch whine when turning.
If you're replacing starters, stick with original Hitachi, Lucas, Bosch or a good remanufactured unit like Remy. Also important to try match the number teeth on the bendix gear to avoid stripping the fly wheel.
Dropped the car to a machanic and he replaced with the 'cheapo' RTX starter from ECP. Took it round the block and parked up. Turned key and just heard the starter spin and didn't fire. WTF!!
Waited for 30 secs and tried again and it fired up. Drove straight to the mechanic and ask him if he replaced the starter with a unit that had same number of teeth on bendix gear. Now the not so funny part, he already sent my original part to ECP to get some extra surcharge money. These cheap RTX units don't have a surcharge so he was making extra money.
He said my starter ring was a little worn and I told him straight my original starter always fired the car and never had any issues so it's BS. We called ECP and they counted 10 teeth on my original bendix versus 8 teeth on the cheap RTX crap.
I ended up ordering a remanufactured Remy starter for £85 and had the mechanic swap out. No issues so far with the Remy unit and the start-up sounds just like the original part. The RTX units have a high pitch whine when turning.
If you're replacing starters, stick with original Hitachi, Lucas, Bosch or a good remanufactured unit like Remy. Also important to try match the number teeth on the bendix gear to avoid stripping the fly wheel.
