After I drove my car for 4 hours, I stopped for gas and tried to start the car but didn't start. There is no crank, just dead silence. I waited for 5 minutes and it started again. What happened? Thanks for all the helps in advance.
Maintenance history? Mostly original parts? Could be a lot of things including starter, crank position sensor, cam position sensor, battery, wiring connections/cables, etc... Start with the easy stuff.
NEW timing belt/water pump/etc were replaced at about 120k. NEW driver's side front and rear wheel bearings have been replaced at some point too NEW Valve cover gaskets - 165k mile NEW NGK spark plugs - 165k mile NEW Rear brakes - 175k mile NEW Rear diff and front diff fluid – 175k mile. NEW Front brakes - 180k mile. Timing belt inspected at 186k mile and still good. NEW Power steering/alternator and A/C belts - 186k mile. NEW both front axles - 186k mile. Car has 196k miles now. I will start with ground wires and starter.
Only times I've had this happen was just a bad connection on the battery or starter. *shrug* I would just clean up all the contacts and snug it all up.
A bad connection somewhere (most likely inside the starter) can cause intermittent no-crank symptoms with little or no pattern, not likely a battery problem if it didn't need to be jumped. Inspect the connections at both ends of the battery cable (battery to starter) as well as the condition of the cable itself. If that all looks good it wouldn't hurt to check the ground straps too (although you'd probably have other symptoms first if it was a ground issue). That pretty much rules out everything but the starter itself. They can be rebuilt, but internal parts are getting hard to find as most people just throw in a remanufactured unit and call it a day.
All the lights and power were working good, I guess ground is good too. I will have to test the starter and starter solenoid.
