My cherokee is having trouble starting at times. I just get one click and then nothing but sometimes it ll start fine. the starter motor itself seems fine when it actually starts. I was told it could be a bad connection going into the starter itself and one told me it could be the solenoid. Im not sure who to believe

-Starter Worn out internal contact.
-It's time to replace new one or rebuild.

Good luck

Mai

Change the starter solenoid,the contacts may be burnt

Remove it & open it up to see

solenoid in the starter motor is failing or the motor itself is, will need replacing. can damage the battery and or the high volts cable.

check the wires carefully to the starter solinoid, if the wires are fine. it could be a bad starter solinoid or starter. and make sure you are getting enough voltage to starter. a battery when vehicle is off, should read at least 12.6 volts at battery. when running if alternator is ok, it should read at least 14.2-14.7 at battery. hope this helps you!

It is highly possible that battery is just dead. This also happened to me on my 97 Jeep Cherokee. I started it in the morning with no issue what so ever, then when i went to go start it again a short while later it was the same issue your having. I tried to jumpstart it and nothing. The clicking noise your hearing is from the starter itself which is perfectly normal when you have a dead battery. That is why your lights dim when you try to start it. It is because when your trying to turn over the starter your having a power drain from whatever is left in the almost dead battery but it doesn't have enough power to turn the starter. Also that is why when you tried to jumpstart it and it didn't work, the battery is just too dead to accept the charge passing through it. Replace the battery and all will be fine. A good name brand battery costs roughly $70-$100 depending on the brand of the battery. I personally have had nothing but good luck with Duralast and Interstate batteries. Good luck. Happy motoring.

Check and clean all connections to & from battery, as in the other ends of cables as well. Make sure starter wires are all in good shape & tight as well. When you hear that click, try to locate area or relay doing the clicking. It may just be a faulty relay. Sometimes it's as simple as removing it and plugging it back in to clean the connection. Do you by chance have a 12volt DC test light to test draw on battery?

you have a bad starter

Try this first. With one of you under the car whack the starter with a hammer as the other of you turns the key t the start position and holds it there. No wimpy whacks here give it one or two good ones. If it is a bad starter it may start this way. If it does, a new starter motor is in your future. Very easy to change on a Jeep. If it doesn't work let me know and we will go further.

Hmm, sounds like starter. Next time it will not start, don't hold the key for almost a minute. Try turning the key several times if no luck, grabb a hammer and LIGHTLY tap on starter. If it turns over normally then, starter is going out.

hi there this seems that you have some bad teeth on the flywheel the flywheel attaches to your motor and transmission the starter motor rotates and spinns over the motor to start if the teeth are gone in certain areas on the flywheel then the motor wont spin you need to remove the transmission and replace the flywheel ,once replaced then make shure the teeth on the starter motor are new not cammed over as you mentioned was the isue earlier hop this helps let me know ho this works with a vote of fixya thanks for using sutch a helpful website like fixya