Rednroll

Posting the same thought at the same time.

rob_engineer

Well, because we got snow today and it's very cold AND because I have a lifetime warranty, I decided to have it towed to the dealer to see what they figure out.

rob_engineer

The dealer has been very slow. I towed it in last Sunday. They finally looked at it yesterday. Starter is bad. They did not have one in stock so had to order it. Will be in today or Monday. The bad starter makes sense for some symptoms, but I didn't think a bad starter would be linked to the belt squeal sound that I heard for about 20 minutes while driving. I have the max care lifetime warranty so this starter replacement is covered, with a $100 deductible.

Rednroll

Keep us posted if that fixes the problem. Maybe the squeal is unrelated? Hopefully.

rob_engineer

I picked up the Jeep tonight. It looks like the only issue was the bad starter. Running great now. I couldn't believe the dealer didn't try to rip me off again by saying I need a cabin filter or diff fluid change. Total cost $104 due to the max care warranty. So, basically 105,000 trouble free miles before a hardware failure. Not too bad.

casamtb

I had a similar situation with my starter. Before it went bad it made a similar squealing sound. I did some searches on line because i felt it was the starter and couldn't find anything on it making that noise. After a month or so not failed completely. It was the teeth on the starter touching the flex plate ever so slightly and making a high pitched sound. I could see wear on the edge of the teeth as if it had not fully disengaged from the flex plate. Upon full fail starter would turn the engine a crank or two and then spin. The clutch inside eventually let loose. There was a bunch of clutch and gear dust inside the original starter. Very similar to what is described here was also my experience and a new starter was the fix.

rob_engineer

Thanks for the feedback. Makes me feel better about the squeal