My son purchased an 08 manual shift Forester a couple weeks ago. I believe it has the original starter. I've checked battery cables, starter motor cables - all clean and tight - battery is "new" per the used car lot - car has never failed to start but it seems to me that the starter could turn over stronger and maybe fire up the engine a second sooner. Don't know if this is normal behavior on a Forester - but if it lasted 10 yrs that is pretty good. Thinking I should stop by Advance Auto parts have them do a free battery/starter/alternator test. What do you guys think? 

...Milty 

 

 

any difference with cold vs warm engine? any smell of fuel under the hood?

You can check the charging voltage with a voltmeter. rev a little and it should be around 14 - 14.4 or so I think (others will correct me if I'm wrong)

voltage while cranking should probably be about 10 or so.

nothing wrong with having the battery and maybe the alt checked at the parts store - but MANY people find typical parts store rebuilt alternators to be very poor risk. If your alt is really bad, a used one from car-part.com or having your original rebuilt locally is a better wat to go. Or check into DBW or Maniac for an alternator. An 08 may have the Mitsubishi planetary starter - they can be noisy/slow to release sometimes but, I haven't read any complaints of 'dragging'.

used car lot may be installing very cheap batteries to get cars out-the-door.

 

Edited January 28, 20197 yr by 1 Lucky Texan

Cold warm start behaves the same. No fuel smell. I have a volt meter I'll check out those numbers.

 

Thanks, 

Milty