Starts, won't start, starts ???

My 98 2.7l Tacoma has 225,000 miles and has been fairly reliable.

This morning went for a drive and stopped at a buddies house for a few minutes, 10 at the most. Went to leave, turned the key:

Dashlights came on along with the radio and fan.
But nothing as far as starting the truck, no clicking - nothing.

I've never had this problem with the truck.

I poked around in the engine compartment, crawled under the truck, checked battery connections - even tried jumping it from my buddies 4Runner.

About to give up and call AAA, and tried one more time. Fired right up, just like I've come to expect given its reliability.

Went to the beach and went surfing, gone for maybe 90 minutes. Came in and the truck fired right up.

Drove home and parked it.

I'm stumped as to why this is happening.

Park/neutral switch
ignition
starter
ground

are logical starting points - but if anyone has any suggestions, I'd like to hear them

 

Start with the easy !!

Battery terminals clean and tight .

Grounds removed and cleaned .

You can`t just look and say good enough !!

How old is the starter ?? Solenoid contacts do wear out .

When it happened was your truck parked level ??

Truck leaning to the side or front to back ??

I have seen this cause ground problems

 

Sounds like the starter contacts are shot. I had the same problem at about 70,000 miles. So have hundreds of other Tacoma owners.

Parts from the dealer run about $20 to $30. If you have a dealer who is smart enough to stock 'em.

You can pay a dealer to replace the contacts for $200 or so. Or you can replace them yourself for about 4 or 5 hours labor.

Do the labor yourself and save some bucks.

 

mine did this off and on for about a week... replaced the starter relay a month ago and it hasn't happened again since.