Computer May Be Easiest Way To Diagnose Starting Problem

this idea is for d.t. from newington. my inlaws had an intermitent starting problem with a mercury they owned, and it never failed to start at the ford dealer, when they had it sent in.
duncan, at some point ford changed the location of the starter solinoid, from the fender, to the chevy style starter mounted solinoid. but unlike chevy's design, ford used a spade terminal for the ignition wire on the solinoid. vibration over the years caused the female terminal to make a loose connection to the solinoid, and in cold, damp, or wet weather, a no start problem.
the solution was explained to me by my local auto parts store owner. makers of remanufactured starters were getting a high number of "defective" returns on their starters, only to discover that they were in fact working perfectly. the remanufacturers found that the loose connection was the cause, so they started including a "repair wire" with all of the rebuilt starters. the fix was to cut several inches off of the end of the ignition wire and replace it with the repair wire which had a new female terminal on the end of it. problem solved!!
duncan, while i agree with you, that dealer shops may have more experience with 'brand' specific or recurring problems, your local auto parts store probaly encounters more diverse problems than ANY garage does. i wish that you would remember to include your local auto part retailer as a great source of repair info. in the future. mine certainly saved my bacon, from having to go rescue the inlaws for 2 months, after each time their car had supposedly been fixed!
this particular dealer had a bunch of new young tech's who were all up on the latest technology, but didn't have a clue as to older vehicle problems that occur over the vehicle's life.
thanks for the good advice column, please just remember the other source, for great advice. rick

That is why it's a puzzlement that more thsn one mechanic looked at the Ford and didn't check the starter cable, the starter solenoid, and the ground cable when the car wouldn't start. But then the Ford owner didn't say whether the engine was turning over but still wouldn't start. Good advice, but I need a full name and full address to use it in the column and you can send me an e-mail to haimerl@aol.com