Chevrolet Cobalt - Won’t Crank or Start, Smoke Under Hood

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General Information: This vehicle was towed in with a no crank/start complaint. The customer just wanted it fixed.

First thoughts: Start simple. Check the battery and starter.

Diagnostics: The first thing I did was check to see if the vehicle had oil and coolant in it. I didn’t want to crank and run this vehicle until I knew it had those things. And it did, barely. This thing had a massive oil leak.

The next thing I did was see if I could recreate the no crank/start issue. With the key on, I could see all the lights on the dash light up, so I knew the battery wasn’t completely dead. I tried to crank on it, and the lights dimmed but came back when I let off. It did not crank, and the service manager ran out to tell me that a puff of white smoke came from underneath the car….

I immediately thought a few things were probably causing this issue. 1. The engine could be locked up. 2. Something in the drive belt could be locked up to cause the engine not to turn. 3. It might be just a bad starter.

I decided to check all of the things I thought were the issue.

I took off the drive belt and spun all the pulleys to make sure nothing was locked up. I’ve only seen one time where a component on the drive belt system cause the whole engine to not turn over or slowly turn over. It was an A/C compressor on a Ford Ranger, and it made me feel like a dummy when I put a new battery and starter on and it still did not work.

But anyways, nothing was locked up on the drive belt system, so I decided to put a socket and ratchet on the crank to see if the engine will turn. And it did.

Because of the white smoke coming from near the starter, I decided to take my chances and replace the starter without checking if it had the correct voltages going to it.

Chevrolet Cobalt - Won’t Crank or Start, Smoke Under Hood

As you can see, the starter was caked in dirt and oil. I assumed that it possibly got internally contaminated from all the dirt and oil.

After replacing the starter… without checking to see if it had the correct voltages there…

It started up! My assumption was correct. It was a risk not checking but this was my thought process.

If it really is the starter smoking, it has to be getting power, right? Might not be the best test, but it worked. I also did not want to be near it checking the voltages while it is smoking.

Why was it smoking when trying to crank on it? My guess is either oil and dirt contamination caused it to lock up, so all the amperage that it was pulling to try to crank was getting it hot and it was causing the oil on it and near it to burn.

or the same principal but on the connections of the starter.

Either way I would have recommended replacing the starter, because we would not know what kind of internal damage the starter could have with all the amperage it was trying to pull. It could have easily have fried something, luckily it didn’t fry the car!


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2006 Ford F-150 4.6L - ABS and Brake Light On

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2003 Ford F-150 5.4L - Mysterious Oil Leak