Ok, I did a search of the forum, and while there’s quite abit of info on rough idling, I didn’t find anything that describes the problemI ran into. My apologies if this turns out to be a long read, but I’m juststumped as to what could be going on. My Jeep is a 2001 Cherokee.

I’ve had a minor restarting issue this past month or so, whichI assumed was summer 100° heat related. When I say restarting, I’m talkingabout driving for say 45 minutes or longer, stopping to do something for fiveto ten minutes or so and then when I go to restart, the crank over is noticeablyslower as if the battery was low, but it does restart and run fine. Once Idrove to work, pulled into a parking spot and turned the engine off and thendecided to restart it maybe a minute later, two at the most and it hardly crankedas if the battery was dead. The interior lights did not dim at all. I let itsit for a couple of hours, three at the most, and it then started fine. I amfairly confident that my battery is ok. I have a Schumacher charger/tester andit shows that the battery voltage and charge percentage are perfectly fine.This only seems to happen when it’s in the upper 90’s to 100’s outside. I know it hasn’t happened even when driving along distance in the mid 80’s.

After reading up on what could be the issue, I was leaningtowards the idea that it was starter related. I purchased this Cherokee new andit is my daily driver. While I wouldn’t say I’m a Cherokee expert, I can tellwhen things aren’t exactly right with it. The Jeep has over 238,000 miles onit, not the original engine, but it is the original starter, so I figured itwas a pretty good likelihood that the starter was on its last leg and decidedto replace it.

This is where the issue starts. I started the Jeep thismorning (and it started just fine) to move it about 15 feet closer to mygarage, turn it off and proceed to remove the starter. I go to a local NAPA andpurchased the starter they offer that has the lifetime warranty. I turn in theold starter for the core charge. I get home and install the replacementstarter. Other than disconnecting the battery, removing the old starter andinstalling replacement that is the only thing I did.

Once I get battery reconnected and go to start it, it won’tstart. It cranks like it’s out of gas. After trying to crank it a few times, Ifigure out that if I give it just a little throttle when I crank it, it willstart. It then proceeds to die if you let off the throttle. If you then restartwith a little throttle, and then keep your foot on the throttle and let it idlearound 1000rpm for about a minute it will then start to idle on it’s own justfine. If you leave it to idle, or even go drive around the block, it seems todrive fine but if you turn it off and try to restart it, the problem is stillthere until you can get it to idle on it’s own. It doesn’t bring up a checkengine light at all while it has this idle issue.

I know that Jeeps can run really rough when there’s an issuewith the battery, but I didn’t have this issue with the original starter. Evenwhen I had the issue where it was slow to crank when it was hot, it would stillstart and idle just fine.

I remove the starter, and then reinstall, making sure it’snot something with the positive battery connection and the issue is stillthere. I did notice that the starter cranking sound does seem a little higherpitched, but I just assumed that wasn’t really anything. I restart it get it toidle and then drive back up to NAPA. After explaining what is going on, sincethey didn’t have another replacement starter to give me. I give them back thecore charge and they gave me back my original starter. NAPA is going to orderanother starter for me to replace the one I purchased.

I go home and replacethe starter with the original, reconnect the battery, and when I crank it, itstarts and idles perfectly fine. I just ran out to try again after it’s sat foran hour and it still starts and idles just fine.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? The counter guy atNAPA probably thinks I’m lying and says that there’s no way the starter could be causing the rough idle issue. I can’t think of any reason this would behappening either, unless there is just something wrong with the starter theygave me.

Any input would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks.

 

I would take apart and clean the connections at both ends of the battery cables. It sure wouldn't hurt to clean the connections of any other grounds, too.

 

Thanks,I thought about that, but my connectors are all in good shape. I'm running 2/0 gauge from the battery to starter and have good clean connections on all of them. The ends of the connectors have good surfaces where they are making connection. Plus, the original starter back on the Jeep doesn't have the same issue that the new starter had, so I'm not really leaning towards the battery cables or grounds being an issue. I guess I'll just have to see if the second starter they give me has the same issue.

 

Strange issue! Keep us posted.