For the past week or so, my car has had an issue starting. It will crank but won't turn over. Sometimes it will stop in the middle of cranking and make a nasty grinding noise. Also when the car is running, you can hear rattling under the car. Sounds like the heat shield but I checked and it's not that. Maybe I have a bad bearing that's rattling and keeping it from wanting to turn over? lve noticed that it's had sort of a vibration at higher RPMs for the last few months. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Fyi, "crank" and "turn over" means the same thing. By "won't turn over", do you mean the engine doesn't start/run? That's different. From your description of the noise though, it sounds like your starter may be going south, or maybe you have a dead spot on the flexplate gear. Have you ever gone oops, and hit the starter while the engine was already running? The gears hate when that happens. Also check to make sure the starter isn't loose, the noise you hear could be a gear mesh issue.

 

Yeah I tried starting it by accident while it was running like two weeks ago and one other time since then. Those were the only two times though

 

And I meant the engine will crank but won't start sometimes. It will get through mid crank and then just stop and make a nasty screeching/grinding noise. Other times it starts right up. The starter was new about a year ago. It has a lifetime warranty from oreillys.

 

When you're turning the engine over, does the starter make a louder than normal gear whine noise? If so, it's likely too wide of a bendix to flexplate gear mesh. That, coupled with some possible rounded teeth on the flexplate from "zinging" the starter, can be the cause of your problem.

 

I'll go try to start it and see what it does again. Another thing is that when it doesn't stop through mid crank, it takes like 3-4 seconds of cranking for it to start. It used to be within a split second that it would start.

 

I forgot, you have a manual trans, don't you? Kindly replace any above mentioned "flexplate" with the word "flywheel".
I don't wanna get flamed for using the wrong terminology (you know how some people here can be)!

 

Okay haha. And yes it's a manny tranny

 

Also, I'm not sure what this means but when I first start my car it's sits at 70psi oil pressure. After 15 minutes of running or so it drops to 50psi.

 

I started my car after work just now and it started up just fine but the oil pressure was at 80psi and it was blowing blueish white smoke out the tail pipes for about 15 seconds. Any ideas?