Hey everyone, writing this on my mums behalf. She owns a VR executive, with a few extras such as ABS and LSD which I found weird. For the last few weeks the cars been playing up, in the mornings it'll start no problem ( but does have a loud knocking noise for the first few seconds. ) But say.. If she's down the street doing shopping, driving from store to store. Once the car begins to heat up, when you try and start it its as if the battery were dying and really struggles to start. If anyone has some past experience or advice it would be of great help. Thanks
Hey mate. I am gonna point at the starter motor solenoid for this problem. All that's happening here is a simple case of electrical resistance, corroded connectors and/or parts getting on in age. Once the car heats up, the resistance to electrical current increases, which causes the starter motor to feel the need to draw more power from the battery. It's not really damaging the car, nor is it a fault of anything really - it's just a minor annoyance. If you really want to go out and spend close to $400 replacing a part that probably works fine except for the connection, then this will fix it. Other than that, I wouldn't really worry about it mate.
The loud knocking on startup could be the harmonic balancer on it's way out - they can wobble and knock although usually they will do that when hot as well, but to check get someone to start the car and you look at the HB and see if it wobbles. For the hot start problem also check the battery terminals - see that they are clean and tight. Finally if the battery is more than 3 years old, replace it as it will be on borrowed time. Thinking about it I will put my money on the battery. Could be starter as Bouronated suggests and if so it will get worse probably which is not what you want to happen. Good Luck.
