Starter Motor in Colorado

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.

Traction sand and de-icer on the corridor, applied where the grades are steepest.

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.

The climate, in a number

The north-east of the state sits in Hail Alley, the most hail-prone area in the country, with seven to nine hail days in an average year. 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

Liquid and solid deicers go on the interstates and divided highways, and sand may be spread on any state highway. 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.

A very large temperature swing

A Front Range day can move forty degrees between dawn and afternoon, and a mountain day more.

Every material in a vehicle expands and contracts through that, every day. Seals and gaskets that would live a decade in a stable climate work harder here. Tyre pressures move enough to matter between a cold morning and a hot afternoon, and a pressure set at either extreme is wrong at the other.

What else Colorado does to a car

Altitude thins the air the engine breathes, and the chain-law days are the ones that load everything at once.

The I-70 ski corridor and the Eisenhower Tunnel elevation make descents that go on for miles.

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 Colorado, including Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora and Fort Collins.