My wife's 1995 945 is really starting to show it 230k miles. We had failing electrical issue with the starter earlier this year that led to be replacing the starter entirely. The starter had definitely failed (spinning gear, etc) However, I did discover that there was significant corrosion on the positive battery terminal. Cleaning it up helped solve the issues.

We've also got a CEL and code for a bad O2 sensor, which has persisted despite an OEM O2 sensor replacement and multiple computer resets.

Last weekend my wife tells me that the car wouldn't start. I checked it and she was mostly correct. This wasn't a crank and no fire problem it was a no electrical anything problem. I gave the key a couple complete and extended turns and it eventually cranked and fired up.

Fast forward to Tuesday Morning. Problem is back. She gives it a few extended turns and the car fires up fine. SO I make plans to give it some service this weekend. However... Friday evening she was leaving work and it does it again, but this time, NOTHING seems to work. No lights, no weak crank, no nothing. I drive over in my c70 and check the battery connections. Positive terminal is looking pretty bad. No coke on hand to clean it, so I unbolt the connections and wire brush the hell out of it. My wife tells me that while I was brushing it (and it was still making contact) the interior lights had come on. Still nothing when she tries to crank it though.

I finish cleaning everything up, bolt the terminal back down and she tries again. She gets some electrics, but no crank. I give her a jump - same deal.

Then I accidentally arced the cables on my battery (+ and - clips came in contact. Lots O' sparks but my car keeps running. Unfortunately her's is now dead again and my patience is gone. SO we grab all her valuables from the car and head home for the evening.


So, I'm heading back over in an hour or so. Hopefully the electrics are okay. I plan to clean up the terminal with a proper terminal brush and if I am very lucky, maybe I can get it to crank and start.

A couple things here cause me some concern:
1) Her car wouldn't crank at all when I was trying to give her car a jump - not even a weak crank. At that point, he car should have been drawing current from my c70 and it should have cranked (even weakly) when connected.

2) Even with poor connections due to corrosion, turning the key a few extra times shouldn't have made any difference to whether or not the electrics would come on. The car has daytime running lights so they should come one once the switch is at KPII.

I'm thinking "Failing/failed Ignition Switch" and that's hard to solve in a gravel parking lot in the bad part of town.

I would check the starter connection, clean the battery connection and make sure the wire to the starter is not all green on the inside of the insulation. I am pretty sure you have a bad battery cable to the starter, hence the reason for jumper cables not working. Pauli

Seems I can chalk up the problem (again) to bad corrosion at the positive terminal.

What I couldn't see in the dark of Friday evening, was that there was significant corrosion underneath the positive clamp. So while I wire-brushed the heck out of the top, sides and front of the terminal, I was missing the worst of it.

I picked up one of those cleaning and sealing kits from the local Autozone for $9.00 Came with some foaming cleaner, a proper terminal cleaning tool, new felt insulating rings and some insulating spray.

After cleaning it up properly and bolting the terminal back on, the car fired up with gusto and has operated fine since.

If the problem resurfaces I will replace the starter wire.

Have you checked out the battery cable connection at the starter. It may be making a flaky connections and repeated key turns to "start" are causing it to heat up and sorta make connection. Ist tha starter terminal getting hot during all this?