I read the FAQ, and did a little homework into my problem through your forums, and I gotta say that this is the most comprehensive Isuzu Tech forum I've ever seen. I think I have a good idea of what's wrong with my vehicle now just by flipping through your posts, but I wanted to run it by you guys and see what you think:

I have a 1999 Isuzu Amigo, 58000 miles, 3.2L V6 engine, automatic transmission. About two months ago my battery died, so I got a jump and got it replaced. I noticed a massive amount of corrosion on my battery terminal, so when I put the new battery in I cleaned it up and put a felt/gunk protector kit on my posts.

Ever since it's had an intermittant starting problem where all I hear is a single click and the car will not start - no cranking, nothing. This is not a metal-scraping "you're still turning the starter when the car's already started" type click - just a single, hollow click with every turn of the key. I do this several more times and eventually it starts up like nothing was wrong, without sputtering or complaint.

I was driving it a lot last moth, and at one point started it up after another fight, and found that it was changing gears hard. There would be a low clunk everytime I changed gears, both speeding up and slowing down. I shut off the car when I got to a safe place, let it sit, and when I got back in and restarted the Amigo it was fine - this happened a few more times, and I noticed that it only seems to do this when I get a "sloppy" start - that is, a start that sort of fizzles out in the middle somewhere, but manages to start the vehicle anyways. Also, I've noticed that this only happens between first and second, but I always shut it off before getting it fast enough to see what happens between second and third...

The starting problem is getting worse too - it used to only happen first thing in the morning, and now it happens everytime you start the car after it's been off for more than an hour.

From reading your posts, I believe my problem is that at some point when the battery was failing, something shorted that damaged either my ignition switch or my starter solenoid or my starter motor. Whatever it is, I think that when I get a really weak start, my transmission is only coming up in "limp" mode. Otherwise, this has absolutely nothing to do with the battery I changed (although I find it highly suspicious that since putting the new battery in, i've had nothing but problems), and maybe totally seperate starter/transmission problems.

What do you guys think?