Gentlemen,

On my '05 C2S I noticed the starter seems somewhat lethargic in starting the engine. It always starts and I never have to crank it for longer than a couple seconds but it doesn't seem to start the engine as enthusiastically as I would expect. Could the starter motor be getting tired, bad ground somewhere, or any other ideas? The car has a new battery and I drive it at least 10 miles per day.

 

It turning over slow is a possible sign that you should replace your starter motor. Read about the starter replacement here.

-Luccia

 

Pretty well documented problem as well with the cable being too small. More noticable when hot outside and lots of small short trips. I I believe that it's the alternator cable.

 

How long does your car sit between drives? Do you use a trickle charger?

 

Less than 12hrs between drives; it's my daily driver for the summer.

 

Had a similar problem as described by the OP, especially when hot. Dealer suspected it was the infamous alternator cable. Turned out to be the stater motor.

 

If it's the starter, I would let it die --- if you can and know how to pop the clutch


On a different note, does anyone know the diameter of the upgraded cable? I want to replace this if I still have the small original version.

 

I'm assuming this is what they're referring to:

http://www.suncoastparts.com/product...ra_S_Engineexl

Unfortunately I don't have paper service records for my car; only records indicating that some sort of service was performed on the CARFAX. There was definitely some sort of charging issue with the car when it sat in the dealer's inventory because they had to put a new battery in it when I purchased the car. Wouldn't be surprised to find that this is the culprit.

 

10 m p day is not enough to keep battery up. Use a trickle charger C-tek/Porsche in the cigarette lighter over night or weekends as often as you can. Very simple plug in. You can investigate the cable if you ever have engine down for other work. Otherwise it is an $$ repair due to labor costs.

 

To follow up on this, the ability of my starter to, well, start the car, has dwindled to the point of not working anymore. I was waiting until I dropped it off at my indy tech's shop to do it in conjunction with the IMS bearing retrofit; looks like my timetable has been pushed ahead. I had the local Porsche dealer overnight the alternator harness and will have my tech order a new Bosch starter and do everything in one shot to minimize downtime. I would attempt it myself if I could've gotten the starter by tomorrow, but it makes more sense just to let him do everything while it's apart.

Now I can go back to putting the Audi back together; I'm knee-deep in replacing the steering rack, control arms, and shocks/struts and need to get it finished ASAP.

 

I would really appreciate if you could provide a way for everyone to 'visually' determine if our cars already have the bigger harness.

If you can take your caliper, measure the new harness, that may work. If you can also measure the old harness, that would be awesome.

Thanks

 

I'll see if my tech can do it if he gets a chance and report back.

 

Turns out the starter cable was finger tight on the starter, causing it to have poor grounding and making the starter and wiring get very hot. Whoever serviced it previously might not have secured the cable properly. We replaced both the harness and the starter just to be on the safe side. Car starts right up and sounds great now! Coincided it with getting the LN Engineering IMS bearing service, so hopefully all will be well for the considerable future!

 

It's good to hear you have it solved and are in good shape for future. Thanks for sharing the outcome and another addition to the wealth of knowledge here. This is one of those that after the fact we can say... oh yeah, that makes sense... but while its happening we don't consider something quite so simple.

 

I replaced my OEM starter w/ another and the AOS as long as I was in there.
Pretty simple project. I did not replace the ALT cable. im in an 08 car....40K Miles.... I did my service as a prev maintenance project prior to failure.
you snooze...you loose on these cars. always been that way.