Tag Archives: Repair

When it rains it pours or so it seems. My 1995 Volkswagen Golf GL has had a bit of an overhaul these last few months. I replaced the sparks plugs and wires, both outer tie-rods, my driver side CV Joint, and then last night my starter when out.

Being the frugal, cheap, penny pincher that I am, and not wanting to pay the $50 towing fee to get my car home, I tried the standard hammer to the starter trick to no avail. I then had a friend give me a push and tried dropping the clutch to get the car started. We couldn’t build up enough speed for the car to turn completely over. I then decided to have my dad get his car and push me with it so I could get enough speed to successfully drop the clutch and get the car running. Sure enough it worked and I was able to drive my car home, get it jacked up in the garage, and removed the old starter.

Removing the starter from the car wasn’t hard at all, but there was a massive problem removing the positive power cables from the starter. For whatever reason, the nut was cross threaded onto the copper terminal bolt and it took me over an hour to get the nut off to free the cables from the starter. Had this not happened I probably could have replaced the starter in just over an hour. Instead it took me over three hours.

I picked up a new Volkswagen Golf MkIII Starter remanufactured from O’Reily’s Auto Parts store for only $86.99. Below are some pics I took as things came apart and were put back together. I hope you all had a great weekend, I’m sure at least your Sunday was better then mine!