For a couple months now, getting worse over time, is my car's ability to start. Once it starts, the car runs alright.

Outside of the 1 in 100 time it starts normally, I hit the push button starter and then you hear a click. The car doesn't start. This is what I see. Once this happens, if I stay on this screen and push the button, the car will never start. My buddy yesterday with a volt meter showed that in this "mode", no current gets sent.



What I can do is double-tap the push button, putting it into this mode:





In this mode, eventually the car will start. Each "attempt", the volt meter shows that when the button is pressed, it jumps to somewhere between 12.0 - 12.7 volts.

In both cases, you hear a click, and then a click a couple seconds later.

I've tried all of the "hacks" I've seen...key fab close to the glove box, putting the car into neutral first, having the car move a little to re-align the flywheel...nothing consistently works.

We can't tell if it's the ignition switch or something in the starter itself. When the car is running, testing the electrical circuits at AutoZone & Advance, it comes back that the voltage regulation in the car is off. BUT this remains the case AFTER I replaced the alternator.

We checked the grounds and battery wires and it's not coming from them. The battery holds charge over 12V when the car is off.

I don't want to spend money on a new starter if this turns out to be just a switch issue somewhere. Has anyone else had these problems?

 

Check to see that the connections on the starter are not loose.

 

It is possible to be a case of high resistance at the connections which causes voltage drops.
Try cleaning all battery posts and terminals of cables. Don't forget to clean the grounding point of the battery at the chassis.
Usually this eliminates the intermittent type of corrosion which prevents the starter from working.
After this, if it still has this intermittent failure to (no crank, no start) work then have to do more tests.