The mystery is on my 1991 Loyale wagon, automatic transmission, front-wheel drive 1.8l. At least half the time, the car will not start when I turn the ignition key. I then have to go under the hood with a screwdriver to arch-start my beauty by touching leads on the solenoid, or whatever it is on the starter.

 

I've replaced the starter, and the column ignition switch. Both changed nothing.

 

Of course, I've tried to start it in neutral. Nothing.

 

Sometimes the car will turn on fine. Rain or outside conditions have no effect.

 

Any recommendations or suggestions would be very appreciated.

 

 

Thank you,

Lawrence Maushard

maushard@gmail.com

I recently had a similar problem.  My car would start right up when it was cold but not after I had been driving it for a while.   I  cleaned and charged the battery but still had problems.  This intermittent behavior had me stumped.  When I would try to start the car, the lights would dim so I knew in my case it was not the ignition switch.  

 

To get my car running I had to fiddle with the negative ground cable and I could never understand why it always seemed to be loose even though I had recently tightened it.   I concluded the problem was the lightweight, original factory, negative battery terminal which over time had lost its ability to correctly tighten on the battery post.  I simply replaced the terminal and now I get good ground connection and the car always starts.

I suggest you first clean the battery post connections, even if they look okay. Along with that check the fusible links for a loose connection. They are located inside the small black box mounted on the coolant reservoir. If you still have trouble after doing those things you then should check to make sure the fuses are getting power through the ignition switch by using a test light probe on the dash fuses. Place the probe tip in the slits on top of the fuses to check for power. If the power to the fuses is okay while the trouble is occurring then you need to check the inhibit switch on the transmission

I had an identical problem.

I found the neutral safety switch(inhibitor switch in subespeak) had intermittent high resistance (about 7 ohms) when in the closed (park or neutral) position.

Since a new switch was a little pricey,I removed the console to cut the relavent wires going to the switch and soldered them together.

Starts in any gear now,but,starts everytime.

 

I had an identical problem.

I found the neutral safety switch(inhibitor switch in subespeak) had intermittent high resistance (about 7 ohms) when in the closed (park or neutral) position.

Since a new switch was a little pricey,I removed the console to cut the relavent wires going to the switch and soldered them together.

Starts in any gear now,but,starts everytime.

 I picked up a 92 Loyale auto from a buddy of mine that had the same problem. He rigged up a push button start for it, but it was that switch. Found out that the switch was bad after doing a 5 speed swap on it.

This is a common problem with the inhibit switch.