We are trying to get my son's Montero ready for inspection in April and hopefully the Uwharries. We finally fixed the wind shield wipers tonight. went to pull it out of the garage and noticed a high idle(2000rpm). We turned it off to look for a loose vacuum line. Couldn't find anything so figured we had done enough for one night. Now it would not start or even turn over. My son said it had happened once before at school. After 15 minutes he tried it again and on the third try it finally turned over and started. Sounds like the starter may be going bad. I just put a new battery on last month.

Also I fear the crank bolt is loose. I noticed a slight wobble in the pully. should I not drive

I know this happens with the 4 cylindwers a lot and a Ford solenoid seems to fix it, but I haven't paid attention if the 6 cylinders have the same problem that people put the Ford solenoid on the 6 cylinders. Did Mitsubishi use crappy wiring that this happens a lot?

I've never had any troubles with starters that weren't already having troubles. Make sure all the ground straps are in place and not missing, check for corrosion in the battery wires are replace as necessary...these are oft looked over things that age poorly.

Look up the ford selinoid fix. I have to do it to mine ASAP too, Intermittantly won't roll over etc... Replaced starter- no change.

whack the starter solenoid and try it again. check voltage drop between ignition switch to starter solenoid.

I had the same kind of issue with my truck. Worked fine and then nothing. Took the starter out and had it tested. It was fine. Put a new battery in, nothing. Finally, my father-in-law noticed that there a little bit of corrosion on the inside of terminal. Scraped it off and bingo, problem solved. Wasn't alot either (no white powder mess). It was wierd cause I just used it 10 minutes earlier.
Another issue that I have run across is the neutral safty switch for the auto. Shifter was in park but not enough forward. Got in, wiggled the shifter and then it made contact. Wound up removing the console and vaccuming the dirt and dog hair and cleaning the switch out with a can of air. I would not recommend shop air though. May damage it.

Everybody above has mention about all the possible causes. I ran across this and the three problems I had 1st hand experience with:
1. neutral safety switch http://www.4x4wire.com/mitsubishi/tech/inhibitor_switch/
2. Corrosion on the ground terminal or ground cable at the block
3. Starter solonoid

Hope that helps. Mine still has intermidate not wanting to crank up acts like it is completely dead. I shift mine into neutral then pack into park turn the key a time or 2 and then it fires right up. i plan on while I am striping the interior to do the neutral safety switch service clean up.

I had a farely new starter that developed what I thought was a dead spot. Got it tested and it was fime.
Ended up being a slightly loose nut on the solenoid to starter conection...

edit,,, I mean the Nut on one of those copper solinoid studs was loose....

Unless you feel like doing a lot of additional repairs I wouldn't drive it at all until you confirm the condition of the harmonic balancer and the bolt. Make sure your engine has the updated crank pulley bolt and that it's correctly torqued to the revised torque specs.

If you need more info do a search - it's been covered on this forum a zillion times.

I had a harmonic balancer that went to $hit, turns out the bolt was torqued fine, but the rubber in the balancer was shot and let it wobble. $110 from Napa for a new balancer (I will never EVER recommend using a JY balancer, not worth the risk it being bad too). Also, the best time than ever to do the crank bolt update.