Starter Motor in Alaska

A cold start is the hardest thing this motor does

Alaska winters put the two halves of a start in opposition. Cold thickens the oil the starter has to turn, so the load goes up; cold also drops what a battery can deliver, so the current available goes down. Demand rises exactly as supply falls, and that is the moment a starter that was merely tired in October stops turning.

A slow crank that gets slower over a week is the warning. A single click is usually the solenoid contacts rather than the motor, and on many designs those are replaceable — worth establishing before buying a whole unit.

Cold and darkness together: the heaviest electrical load of the year falls in the months with the least driving.

Road salt reaches the terminals and the bolts

The starter sits low and takes everything the front wheels throw at it. Two things corrode: the heavy battery cable at the solenoid stud, and the mounting bolts into the bell housing.

The first is a resistance that reads as a weak starter. The second is why replacing one here is a longer job than the labour guide says — plan for seized fasteners rather than being surprised by them.

Studded tyres rut the surface and the grit that fills those ruts is thrown at everything underneath.

More starts than the mileage suggests

A starter wears by cycles rather than by distance, and driving here produces more of them than the odometer implies — gates, junctions, pull-offs, and journeys that are short and frequent rather than long and few.

When you are a long way from help, a starter that has begun to hesitate is worth replacing on the hesitation rather than on the failure.

Distances between towns are long enough that a no-start is a recovery rather than an inconvenience.

The climate, in a number

Anchorage's normal winter snowfall is 74.5 inches. A starter draws its heaviest current on the coldest morning of the year, which is the morning it is most likely to be asked twice.

What goes on the roads in winter

The transport department anti-ices with a brine that is 23.3 percent sodium chloride, and falls back to sand once it is too cold for chemicals to work. The starter sits low enough on most engines to be inside the spray, and it is the solenoid connections rather than the motor that corrode first.

Why this one here

Forty below is a season here rather than a night, and it is the load that finds a starter that was merely tired in October.

Ruts, and what they do

Studded tyres are legal here and widely fitted, and over a winter they wear grooves into the pavement. On the busier roads around Anchorage those ruts become deep enough that a car will follow them whether or not the driver wants it to.

Driving in a rut is a continuous steering load. Getting out of one — to change lane, to pass, to turn — means climbing the ridge between grooves, which is a lateral impact on the tyre and the steering.

What else Alaska does to a car

Frost heave over permafrost moves a road surface between visits, and gravel highway miles come as standard.

What we hold, and what it costs

5 options from Bosch, Cardone, Denso, Remy and Valeo, from $199.99 to $249.99. Prices are firm — where we have no price we publish none.

We are a reseller rather than a manufacturer: we source the part, check it over and sell it, and we confirm it against your year, make, model and engine before it ships rather than asserting a fit on the page. We ship anywhere in Alaska, including Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Wasilla.