MR2V6 content, but subject matter is universal I think.

So yesterday while leaving my driveway my car shut down on me. When turning it back to the ON position my tach wasn't doing its sweep (LinkECU start-up). Then I saw the smoke coming out from the engine lid. When I popped it open I could see the smoke was coming from the starter wire. Apparently it had grounded into the shift linkage on the transmission and roasted my battery (that poor Optima )

Fast forward to this afternoon. I put a new battery in and it was very sluggish to turn over, but it did and started and ran fine. So I yanked the starter off and replaced it with a new unit... and the sluggish starting continued.

I am going to pull off the alternator and take it in to NAPA to get it tested/replaced... thinking the built-in voltage regulator might be fried on it. Is there anything you guys can think of that I am missing here? Or am I on the right track with this? I guess I've never roasted my electrical system before...

Check your wiring -- good chance something else was cooking and burnt wires tend to produce connection issues.

Good chance the ground got roasted with the battery cable

Going to purchase new battery cables today to rule that out.

Replaced ground wire at the battery this evening. Cleaned up the chassis point as well. Still no go.

I then disconnected the battery and ran jumper cables from it to the starter and grounded on the engine... No change. I figured that would be an effective way to bypass the positive battery cable. I tried two known good batteries with no change.

I'll be putting a multimeter to it tomorrow to find where the resistance is at.

Sounds like the starter is toast. If thats the case it is much easier to replace than wiring

I had replaced the starter already. That was troubleshooting step one.


Today I pulled off all of my 4ga ground cables from the engine and found that one had become VERY oxidized. I sanded down the ends of the cable and reinstalled and now it's starting perfect again. Drove home and had no issues.