My 98 Camry has just under 97k miles on it and I would have intermittent issues with what I thought was the starter solenoid possible sticking. Randomly when I would go to start my car and turn the lock cylinder to start it would make a hideous high pitched whirring almost grinding noise, note: it would only do it randomly and not all the time. In fear my starter was going out I just recently replaced it with a newly re-manufactured one from Auto Zone a couple days ago. However, in the morning the last couple days I would have a brief grinding noise when starting it up that would last less than a second, and as of yet has only occurred in the morning after sitting for quite a while. It is not the same high pitched grinding/whirring sound as before, but a very brief less than a second grind as if I was holding the key in the start position too long but I am not. Could this possibly be my lock cylinder sticking a little when its cold after sitting for a while? Has anyone experienced similar issues with this?

One further note I didn't notice any real wear to the teeth on my old starter when I replaced, so I highly doubt it would be a damaged flywheel or anything like that. Possibly ring gear issue? But I don't really want to think about that because that's an issue requiring hundreds of dollars to fix, dropping the transmission etc... That I don't have the money or time to deal with right now. Any light that could be shed on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

yes I have had same issues before

I suspect worn ring gear teeth in a small section of it
visual inspection will tell you

remove the starter
mark the flywheel start point with chalk
turn the motor over bit by bit by hand .. till you see the chalk mark again
then you are sure you have inspected all the teeth of the ring gear

if the ring gear is ok .. then chase ignition /voltage issue

 

Thanks for the advice Dirty Hands. I will check it out this weekend. Do I just manually turn the gear in inside the hole where the starter gear meshes with the ring gear to inspect it? Also I feel its weird that I never had the intermittent grind noise with my old starter just the high pitched whirring sound reminiscent of a bad solenoid. I bought a remanufactured starter from auto zone, I wonder if that could be the issue. It's just really strange to me that I never heard the quick grind noise before I put the new starter in, and it really doesn't sound that bad compared to the god awful high pitched sound it would before where the starter wouldn't even engage.

 

Also wanted to add I hear from other forums on the net that the auto zone rebuilt starters are junk, have you heard anything of this? Cause I now have a new problem that I didn't have even after fixing the old problem, just doesn't add up.

 

with the starter motor out
you put a socket and ratchet on the harmonic balancer crank bolt
turn the motor over a bit at a time

look though the space where the starter was
the ring gear teeth will be visible

about the starter

parts supplier pictures for 98 Camry 2.2L starter make it look like
a hi torque gear reduction starter

will spin the motor faster than std starters (higher torque..will make a different pitch noise )

most gear reduction starters have no internal plastic parts