Top Ten Reasons Your Car Won't Start in Grand Rapids

You're ten minutes late for work, fishing your keys out of your purse as you race out the door towards your car. You jump into the driver's seat and jam the key into the ignition, but your car doesn't start. Why not? Why on Earth does it have to pick right now, of all times, to not start?

Rhetorical question aside, it might help to understand how your car works before we delve into why it doesn't work.



Let's start at the beginning. You turn the key. Super simplified, this signals your battery to send a huge amount of energy to the starter motor, which turns the engine.

The engine has several pistons in it (long solid tubes of metal that fit snug inside of long hollow columns and are moved up and down by the rotation of a crankshaft). When the engine “turns”, that means the pistons are pulled and pushed. When they are pulled out, they suck in a mixture of fuel and air from your gas tank through a pair of valves.

The valves then close, and when the pistons push back in, they compress that fuel, making it very combustible. A timing belt then tells your battery to send electricity to your spark plugs. When the spark plugs create a spark, the fuel mixture ignites, pushing the pistons back out. The excess energy from this small explosion causes the crankshaft to turn again, and when the pistons push back in again, the burnt fuel mixture (you'll recognize it as exhaust) exists through another set of open valves that go to your exhaust pipe. The crankshaft continues turning, causing the pistons pull in fresh fuel from your gas tank and the process begins again!

Alright! So now that you have a very basic understanding of HOW your car starts, let's figure out the reasons WHY your car won't start .

1. Dead Battery/Ignition Switch: If your battery is dead, there is no power with which to send electricity to the starter motor. Your engine won't turn, and the cycle won't start. If your ignition switch (or wiring) is broken, then the battery won't get the signal at all!

2. Bad Fuel Mix: This can include having no fuel at all, your fuel line being clogged up by something, having the wrong mix of fuel, or having some impurities in the fuel mixture (like water in your gas tank). If you don't have the right mixture of fuel to air, it won't ignite properly and your car won't start.

3. Lack of Compression: You need a certain amount of compression to make that fuel mixture ignite. Lack of compression can be a result of worn out piston rings, intake/exhaust valves that aren't sealing properly, or a hole in one of your cylinders.

4. Lack of Spark: If your fuel isn't igniting, it can be due to a weak or completely missing spark. This can be caused by your spark plug or spark plug cables being bad, cut or missing cables, a faulty system that doesn't tell your spark plugs to spark, or the spark plug timing to be off.

5. Timing Belt Failure/Tensioner Failure: The timing belt opens and closes the valves that let in fuel and let out exhaust. If they aren't opening and closing at the right times, your engine will choke.

6. Distributor Failure: The distributor parses out voltage to the cylinders. They can wear out and/or get gunked up naturally over time, so general maintenance will prevent this.

7. ECM/PCM failure: The ECM (Engine Control Module) and PCM (Powertrain Control Module) are computers inside your car. The ECM reads information from various sensors and adjusts your fuel intake for the best efficiency. The PCM adjusts the idle speed of your engine (how much fuel your engine takes in without your foot on the gas pedal).

8. Out of Oil: If your engine doesn't have clean or any oil, your cylinders can't turn efficiently and your engine will lock up. You'll also do a lot of damage to your engine, so make sure to get regular oil changes!

9. Worn out Bearings: If the crankshaft has worn out bearings, it can't move the pistons smoothly and your engine won't be able to run.

10. Plugged Exhaust: If part of your exhaust system is plugged, like your catalytic converter needs replacing or an animal crawled into your exhaust pipe, that exhaust won't be able to clear out of the engine and there's no space for new fuel.

These are some basic reasons why your car might not be starting. If your engine won't turn over, the fellows here at Leo and Ed's Auto in Grand Rapids will be able to run diagnostics on your car and find out what's wrong with it. We will get your vehicle fixed so you can get back to your normal routine!