ejd28

Hey guys.. I'm new here and I hope someone can help me. First off I am going to let everyone know that I know absolutely nothing about cars so if replies could be kept in dummy terms it would be appreciated.
I have a 1991 Tempo and when I tried to start it tonight nothing happened. It didn't turnover and it didn't click but I do have lights, radio, everything. I was thinking that it could be the starter, but I have not had any problems starting the car up until now. I don't think the cold has anything to do with it (it was like -35 today) because I had the car plugged in and it worked fine earlier. If it were a battery the lights wouldn't work either, would they? I don't understand how it just all of a sudden doesn't work. It is especially frustrating because I just got my car back after a month of being without one, as it was stolen a week before christmas, and though it was recovered a few days later, I had to wait until the beginning of this month to get it into a shop to get looked at. They checked over the car and fixed everything related to the accident (people who stole the car hit a curb), so tires, rims, etc. They also fixed some things that needed work before cata... converter, and some kind of leakage. I find it strange that upon checking out the car, they didn't find something that would cause my current problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm just hoping that it isn't something serious. Would they have been able to tell that my starter was going to go just by looking at it even if there hadn't been problems before, or can it just happen all of a sudden??

Oh and in case it makes a difference, the car is an automatic

ejd28

My car is working now. In case anyone has this same problem I want to let everyone know that I didn't do anything to get it started whatsoever. I don't know if there really is a problem with the starter or not, but it got down to -40 something last night, and this morning it would turnover but wouldn't start. I knew the battery wasn't dead because the lights and everything worked fine. I had the car plugged in and I just got a new block heater put in when my car was in the shop so I didn't think it could be the cold. I plugged my car into a different plug and tried every hour or so and each time it would get better and better until it finally started so I am assuming the plug it was in wasn't working for some reason. For all I know their could still be a problem with the starter, as I've never heard of it being to cold for the starter to engage, but then again I've never heard of the car being to cold for the heat to turn on either and that also happened. I had to have my car running for about 15 minutes before the fan would turn on, so it is a possibility that it was just the extreme cold all along.

dagr8tim

Most likely your oil was very cold and very thick. How long since your last oil change and what weight of oil did you use?

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ymurf

i was having problems like that and i had to replace my neutral safty switch..starts every time now.Tom

chevanater

next time you get nothing try starting it in neutral... worked for me