My starter motor appears to be sticking on my MK1 Octy VRS, does this mean its on its way out or is there an easy fix for this?

Cheers

By sticking do you mean it stays engaged after the engine fires? If this is the case the starter motor solenoid may not be doing its job and it probably means a replacement. I don't know of an alternative to replacing the starter motor.

There was a time...

Just be careful that the ring-gear on the fly-wheel doesn't get damaged, assuming modern cars still work this way.

yeah just for a second after the car starts it stays on, car starts and runs fine otherwise.

SWMBO's Octavia suffered from the same. I agree with mathepac - only (simple) solution is to get a new starter (I guess that in principle the solenoid could be changed but will probably cost more in terms of time/labour).

The garage (car electrician) that did the job said that the starter could continue to work for quite a long time, but sooner or later it would give up. And of course some paragraph of Murphy's Law says that it will happen at the most inconvenient moment.

I'm not sure but I think the risk for flywheel damage is small, the starter is the weaker part of the two.

cheers, with that said what would a new starter cost if it needs one?

You need more expertise than I can offer, sorry.

mine's been like this for 12 months or more, it's got no better and no worse. It's unlikely that the starter will stop working, it's just the solenoid and pinion engagement mechanism being lazy to return.

I have taken mine off to investigate, and cleaned a bit of crap out of the sliding/pivot mechanism, but frankly it was hard to see why there was a problem, it all seemed clean and free enough to be honest. I did give the slide/pivot a good spray with GT85 maintenance spray and it did solve the problem for a few weeks before it gradually returned to how it was, so I've left it and ignore it now

:iagree: i would n't worry about it mines been like it for yonks and not caused any probs,seems to stop when the cars warmed up too.

A common problem.

Yeah i get it randomly sometimes too. Makes a nasty noise for a second but it works fine and doesnt happen all that offen. Seems a common niggle.

Try finding a recon place. Got the started on my last car recon'd, and it was alot cheaper than new.

I wont bother with mine till it breaks, because the law of sod depicts that if you buy a new one it'll do it too!!

It is a common problem. I've had the same prob since i've owned the car. Tried the cleaning, but it never worked. Bit embarrassing when people around car when you start up.

Cheera for the advice guys, most helpful. Glad to know its not serious but being an anal sod and wanting my car to be perfect ill prob just get it fixed,the noise is quite annoying and embarressing lol

It is a common problem. I've had the same prob since i've owned the car. Tried the cleaning, but it never worked. Bit embarrassing when people around car when you start up.

Lol my thoughts exactly, I've got the same problem, think I might just change it this weekend!

Ahh - that's what that noise is then !!! Yes, mine does the same and started about a year after I had to get it changed as the previous motor died on me.

Is the motor quite easy to change ? I'm not concerned about the noise really but it certainly is loud enough to make heads turn.

Rob