thanks all for you suggestions...the thing is the starter showed no signs of being on the verge of failing and it just felt like to me it wasn't getting power. for those of you who have auto trannies you know if you don't put it in either P or N, it won't start...so it kinda felt like that...of course i made sure it was in P and tried starting it in N...nothing.....well i spent an hr or so today going thru the online p5 manual and noticed that it could be one of about 4 basic things....so i started with all the obvious, fuses, wire busted/ corroded and then moved on to the TRS or "transmission range sensor" these can go bad and of course if not functioning properly, no matter what position the tranny is in it won't start. so i look down from above and what do i see on the top of the sensor..antifreeze??? the over flow bottle was leaking ever so slowly that i never saw it on the ground, and when i took the connector off the TRS, the senosr had a small quanity in the bottom. the connector it self was wet as well. i get out the heat gun...run it over both parts until it's all evaporated, plug it back in...and da-dah fired right up! i'm happy again!