Actually there are two common problems, one that Rarly describes and the other which involves the starter when the car is hot (the starter is a heat sink for all that engine heat). The second is a very common problem. The switch may fail, in normal rotation, first through unlocking the wheel, ignition on, and then fail to physically turn into the start (spring loaded) position. You can test for a bad switch by bypassing the switch. When your car doesn't start, can it be push started? If it can, you know that the ignition pole on the switch is good. You may also check for voltage at the solenoid when someone rotates the ignition switch. Since you have to crawl under the car to test for this failure, cut a short piece of 12 gauge wire, about three inches long. Strip the insulation off the ends of the wire and bend it to form a "U'. Jump from the big terminal, battery lead to the wire going from the solenoid to the starte (bypassing the solenoid). If the starter spins, you may have a dirty/worn out solenoid, but your starter could use new brushes and probably needs to be cleaned up. Terrible job getting the allen head bolt out of the top mount. Take the starter and have it rebuilt and a new solenoid mounted -- total $100 or less. I know that you get pay from $270 - $345 for a new heavy duty starter, but why? You have a pretty strong one in there already. Don't expect any starter to live in that environment for 18 years and not need new brushes, a good cleaning, and a little bit of grease.
Switch is a bad job and very pricy.
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