clb0099

Hello all and happy new year. So I will dive right into my issue. A month or so ago I noticed my car taking longer to start and it sounded like the starter was getting stuck/dragging . Well I believe the starter finally went as it doesn’t start at all. Being that I have other cars I allowed it to sit while I made an appointment with my mechanic. In the meanwhile the battery completely drained and of course I had to manually open the car with the valet key. With that said I was able to pop the truck and hook up a trickle charger to the rear main battery. The battery voltage is 11.9 but unfortunately when I put the key in the ignition the lights, cluster , and other electronics come to life but of course do to the starter being shot the car won’t start which leads me to my next issues. Since the car was sitting for a month the suspension has dropped which will make it hard to get the car onto the flatbed of the tow truck. The second issue is that the car with ignition on won’t get out of park. This transmission module was just replaced with a brand new one less a year ago. With all this said I have a bootleg Mercedes star computer that I can connect to the car but I am not sure the car will have enough juice battery wise to keep on. I need to somehow be able to get the suspension up and car in reverse or neutral. Lastly my mechanic informed me to remove the negative terminal from the main battery in the trunk which will he called a hard reset of the all systems. Just as a side note both batteries in the car are 6 months old and I have a new starter sitting my on passenger side seat. If anyone can suggest something please let me know. Also the alternator is less than 3 years old. Finally I have not yet banged on the starter while trying to start it as I will try that closer to the day I am going to tow it just in case. Like I said before I am open to suggestions. Thank you

kbob999

Check the starter battery (by engine) for proper electrolyte and voltage, and that the connections are not corroded.
Charge it up if low, then crank it again.

Also try jumping the starter battery to make sure you are getting lots of volts and amps.
If it starts, go ahead and charge it, drive it, and then shut it off when home again to see if you cured it.
If not, take it to the mechanic and swap the starter.

Last - get a battery maintainer and hook to the rear convenience battery. Keep it plugged in any time the car sits for 3 days or more.
Let us know how it turns out.

clb0099

Thank you for the response. So I am sorry if I didn’t make this clear but both starter battery and rear main battery are on trickle chargers and both also were connected at some point with jump packs that are fully charged and top notch. I actually ended up getting the car into different gears. Needless to say I will be towing the car to my mechanic as I strongly believe it’s the starter. This car has been a pain in the *** over the last three years as it’s needed a lot of tender loving car as it wasn’t really taken care of previously. Hopefully the starter fixes the issue.

kbob999

You don’t need the trickle charger on the front battery for normal use, and only when the car is fully discharged.

Sounds like you have the situation under control. Best of luck this cures it.

Cuzzo

My 2011 s550 4matic did the same thing.came home and went back out 2hrs later and the starter sounded like it was dragging and stop working..I purchased a starter from amazon $80 and put it on..that starter didnt work so I purchased one from fcp euro $200 and it crunk right up...fcp euro also has a lifetime warranty on all their parts...the starter was easy to put on...I'm not a mechanic I watched the YouTube videos and did it myself...when the car crunk up the car lifted off the suspension and leveled out..

clb0099

Great to hear. My car is RWD .. I have so many cars that I decided to get this car as a project. I drive an A6 Quattro.