94 Concouse with a starting problem.

Our 94 Concourse left my wife stranded the other day for the first time ever. Just turned over 100K the same week.

It simply won't turn over or even click at the solinoid. Everything else works and has plenty of power.

Things I've checked.
-No error messages or blown fuses.
-Key is clean and seems to make contact at the resistor.

Things I need to check:
-Neutral safety switch.
-Starter enable relay.
-Voltage at starter.

My questions are:
-Which wires (color) to probe on the neutral saftey switch?
-Where the heck is the starter enable relay on a '94?
-Which wire (color) goes to the starter solinoid? I would rather not have to take off the intake!
-Anyone else have this same problem and know what the problem was?


I have 2 factory shop manuals one for '92 & '93 and another for '97's. There seems to significant differences between our '94 and the '97 and some things are carry overs from '93, but not enough to really help.

Thanks in advance for any advise or help!

I found the problem over the weekend. I feel rather stupid to admit the problem was a bad connection at the battery. It was the very first thing I checked and the terminals looked tarnished not corroded, so I kept looking for some other problem.

I wonder how many starters on these cars have been replaced because of a bad connection at the battery? Our starter has 100K on it and the thing works great. Actually it works better now than it has for years because of the very clean battery terminals. It cranks very quickly now. Seriously if you have starter problems or even a slow starter, make sure those terminals absolutley spotless before you try anything else.

Other things I found while looking for a short:

The starter enable relay is inside the car on the drivers side under the carpet by the left kick pannel. It's the only relay there.

The neutral safety switch is located on top of the transmissioin below the master cylinder. The yellow wire comes from the igintion switch and the purple wire is the one that gets voltage if the switch is in park or neutral. Possible way to bypass the switch??

The heavy guage purple wire that goes under the intake from the passenger side near the power steering fill is the wire that goes to the solinoid. Start here with a light tester to look for shorts. I had voltage so I figured it was the starter (wrong!!!! it was the battery connection as I mentioned).

The intake is really easy to take off. Actually you don't need to take it completely off to get to the starter. Just remove the 4 long small diameter bolts, lift and prop up. You will have plenty of room and it takes about 10 minutes. Take off the rubber tube from the air filter to the throttle body too.

Get the starter off and test it with jumper cables. This little after thought saved me close to $150. It worked so I knew the problem had to be back at the battery.

While the intake is out of the way take the plastic spacers off that go between the intake and the head. There will probably be lots of carbon under these things. I used a small screw driver and shop vac to clean the passage ways out. Also make sure the holes to the egr
on the throttle body side are open as well as the slots to each of the intake tubes. A couple of cans of Carb cleaner will clean it right up. Clean the intake gaskets off good and then reuse them (as per the factory shop manual). Use lots of paper towels to sop up the mess.

Cleaning out those egr passage ways under the intake made a big difference in how it ran. Much smoother and it seems to be getting better mileage, but only time will tell.

Don't be affraid of taking off the intake! I dreaded having to do that from day 1 and it is so easy. We didn't need to replace the starter, but I found one for $139 and it might take 30 minutes total. Keep that in mind before you pay a dealer huge bucks for something so simple. As a bonus you can clean your carbon out too.

Hope this little write up helps someone in the same situation.