Where the hell can I get a 348 starter from??

Apologies if we missed your email. Mike was on holiday earlier this week, and it has been a bit crazy!

I have it in stock:

http://www.ricambiamerica.com/product_info.php?products_id=201918


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Can you tell us how the starter motor came to be engaged while driving? It's not going to happen again, is it?

I had this happen once with my VW Corrado. It had an intermittant problem where the starter refused to crank over, so as a temporary fix I installed a jumper wire that could be run from the starter terminal to the battery positive terminal. Just open the hood, touch the wire, and it started. Well, the ONE time I loaned the car to a friend, the wire came unwound and its "memory" took it right to the battery. The starter began running while she was at idle in a parking lot, and it kept running until it TOTALLY fried. They wouldn't even take it as a core, it was melted. Lesson learned.

 

I had a BMW that fried 5 starters before the mechanic decided that something about the car was killing them. He kept telling me the replacement starters were defective even though I told him after the third one that something else was going on. He did stand behind his work because he only charged me for installing one. There was also about $400 of towing charges that he ate. He ended up connecting the starter directly to the ignition circuit and bypassed some of the other wiring it was originally connected to. That fixed the problem.

 

I prefer new from Ricambi, but this place sells the used/rebuilt Nippondenso starters: http://www.exchange-starters-and-alternators.co.uk/exchange-starter-motors.htm


One real advantage to using the used/rebuilt starter at first is that if the problem is still there you won't be burning up a $1,200 new starter.