Starter Motor in New Jersey

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.

Salt across the turnpike corridor, applied to the densest traffic in the country.

The climate, in a number

Snowfall averages 40 to 50 inches a year in the north of the state against 10 to 15 inches in the far south. 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

Rock salt goes down wetted with liquid calcium chloride or salt brine, which makes it start melting sooner than dry salt would. 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.

The densest traffic in the country

New Jersey has more people per square mile than any other state, and the driving reflects it. The Turnpike, the Parkway, the approaches to two of the country's busiest crossings, and local roads carrying volumes they were never laid out for.

That is a brake problem more than anything else. Stop-start driving means the brakes do essentially all of the speed control, at full vehicle weight, with none of the aerodynamic drag that slows a car on an open road. Pads here are consumed at a mileage that would be half-life in a rural state.

What else New Jersey does to a car

Shore salt air on top of it.

Long periods at idle in dense traffic load everything that depends on airflow, and count hours rather than 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 New Jersey, including Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Trenton.