I have a friend having problems with her 1998 Saturn SC2, so I joined SaturnForum.com What a mistake that was. Her car was having difficulty cranking and hoping some friendly members would offer some ideas. It was not easy getting information from her, but wanted to spare her paying a mechanic if possible. Finally got from her it may have some thing to do with the alarm system. About that forum. The moderators immediately got rude even after an introduction to assure them of good intentions. Even though it was obvious I was not spammer or troller, they piled on me for apparently not being under the hood on Skype. :eyebrow: One of the moderators had stuff in the sig inactive accounts would be deleted immediately.....only 25,000 posts since 2004. Was banned a day after posting the thread, contacted the admin and was reinstated, but after a couple of very polite posts to trollish moderators, was banned again and thread removed. Again, I was helping a friend short on cash in hopes of sparing her a trip to the mechanic, yet they acted like it was MY CAR and I was under the hood ready to post replies right away. They wanted more than scanning the entire forum if the question was ever posted before and made the atmosphere not like an outing of friends but like meeting a board of directors....i.e. do your homework to the point you probably already know the answer. Given their inactivity, I must have broken their boredom coming in thinking they were friendly enthuasists. And I thought I was a strict moderator. Not only do they ban spammers, trollers (except for their moderators), but anyone that's not a groupie. I'd bet over here if PC wanted to delete anything that was ever said before, that would be at least 80% of the past posts, and 99% of new content.
There are real butt-munch forums out there Bra... sorry to hear you ain't getting any justice from the folks you were hopeful to help you... sometimes you don't get justice when a power-hungry button-pusher gets to have their way regardless of your intentions...
Well, we can certainly do better than they did! You said it took them a full day to ban you? Tony, get on it right now! All kidding aside, Can you describe the issue a little more? This may be a Prius enthusiasts site, but there are plenty of people here who are pretty knowledgeable about cars in general From the brief description given, I would guess the alarm is running the battery down a bit, to the point where it's having trouble delivering the cold cranking amps needed to start the car? How new is the battery? Is it possible for you or someone else to "get under the hood" at some point? It could be valuable to measure how much current the alarm is drawing while the car is off.
Exactly what I was thinking! That's the other thing I was thinking. Assuming Chuck has already scanned the entire database for potential resolutions, read all the Saturn Tech Docs and is leaning over the engine right this instant, I'm sure there's someone here who would be happy to ignore him.
When the car does not start, all electric systems work, but the starter does not work, or attempt to crank the engine. The battery to her 1998 SC2 Saturn was replaced recently, so it's not that suspect. Went thru her fuses recently - all good. The best guess right now is her alarm system is failing - the frequency of the keyless devices are off. There may be a feature on the alarm system that is disabling the car when it thinks someone is breaking in. _____________________________ The other part of the problem is it's not my car and she is hesitant to join a forum, even with me promoting them as a great way to get information for health, pets, computers, and cars. Aside from being unfamiliar with navigating in forums, she is afraid all forums are troll-ridden, as SaturnForum.com apparently is. Half joking - half-serious, that problem could be resolved by changing the URL to SoYouWantedSaturnCarAdviceLOL.com or SaturnForum.troll. I can somewhat understand, being a moderator that n00bs get watched the first few posts - spammers and trollers are a problem by the 10th post - usually a lot sooner. So I started with an intro before going into my friend's Saturn problem. I've been on forums since 2000 - car forums since 2003. I don't make my dig at SF lightly.
Ok, so it's not even attempting to crank the engine... not a battery problem them It could be a lose wire somewhere from the alarm install, or as you indicated the alarm system is locking it down for some reason. If it were me, I'd start digging into the engine/alarm system with a multimeter to see where the signal stops, that could help narrow it down.
Chuck, My daughter-in-law has a Saturn similar to your friends. With hers, this usually happened after she had been driving, parked for a short while and then tried to restart. After a period of say an hour or so the car would then start. I googled this and found out that Saturns have a known problem with their starters. Evidently after a start the rotor expands and if attempted to restart before cooling down they will bind and not turn. There were multiple comments from Saturn owners about this problem. They replaced the starter and the problem went away. I am not sure if this fits your friend's prloblem or not. I bought a starter for my DIL's car but the starter is mounted in a location between the engine and the firewall that is impossible to get to without special tools. You would also need to be on a lift where you could get a better angle than if on ramps and laying on the ground. I told her she would need to take it to a mechanic that had a lift and the right tools to change that starter out. It is a shame they mounted something as simple as a starter in such a hard place to get to. Hope this helps more than the Saturn forum Dwight
I recommend going to the larger GM forums for this kind of help. There are two larger ones with a somewhat good enthusiastic user base. Just stay clear of all threads regarding any Toyota or Ford products.
One automotive forum I've looked for information (for other cars than my prius) is at automotiveforums.com SC/SL/SW - Automotive Forums .com Car Chat above link for sc's
