[ucrpike]

Hi. My son drives a 2000 Dodge Neon. Last night, the engine apparently died while he was on the road. He says he heard some sort of a pop sound from the engine compartment when it died. It will not restart. Starter does not appear to crank at all. Lights appear to be bright, so car probably has enough battery power. It was daylight this morning when I briefly saw the car, but I did not see the lights dim at all when putting the ignition switch in the start position. He said that the car may have sputtered a little sometime before it died. His descriptions are a little vague to go by. Any suggestions for where I should start to investigate? The combination of symptoms here has me confused. There are lots of reasons the engine might stop running, but I can't understand why the starter won't even engage now, either. Any advise would be appreciated.

[TxGreaseMonkey]

. Check all under hood and under dash fuses with a test light or multi-meter.

. Fully charge the battery and clean the battery terminals and cable connections.

. Perform an ignition by-pass test, by running a 12AWG wire (or remote starter switch) from the positive battery terminal to the "S" terminal on the starter solenoid. If the starter motor cranks, the battery and starter motor are fine. If the starter motor doesn't crank, focus on the starter relay, ignition switch (check for wear, pitting, or melting), neutral safety switch, and wiring.

. Check for a broken timing belt.

[ucrpike]

Thank you, TxGreaseMonkey! All are good suggestions, and make perfect sense. I'll start there this weekend. The timing belt is what I fear most, as the Neon engine compartment is packaged so tightly that there's essentially no space between the face of the motor and the passenger-side inner wheel well. I'd been thinking about replacing the timing belt as preventative maintenance for a while, but haven't because we'd have to lift the motor out of the car -at least partially- just to get the accessories off. By any dumb chance, might there be a way to check the timing belt in this car without actually inspecting the timing belt itself? I know that's probably a stupid question, but I've got to ask...

[TxGreaseMonkey]

Remove the oil filler cap and see if the camshaft rotates, when someone else cranks the starter motor. If the starter motor doesn't work, find out what direction (CW or CCW) the crankshaft should be rotated using a breaker bar.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the timing belt broke and and the pistons collided with the valves--not a pretty picture.

[odinn7]

As TGM said, if the belt broke, you've probably caused more damage than you are going to be able to fix as it's most likely an interference engine so just replacing the timing belt won't solve the problem.