My old runaround – 52 plate Ford Fusion just completely died on the driveway after starting this afternoon no issues at all.

Remote central locking worked, put keys in the ignition and it killed all electrics – no locking, no lights, no radio, no dash, nothing.

Minute later it jumps back to life but has reset the dash clock so guessing something has killed every supply!

Now its going on and off randomly, and if I try and start the engine with the power still there I just get a small ticking, nothing moving at all.

To me it sounds expensive, but before I take it to the garage just wondered if anyone has experience and an idea what it sounds like to try and fix before big bills!!

Argh!

Dead battery.

Sounds like the battery. Maybe the battery itself or one of leads or connections. Earth lead maybe but charge/check battery first.

Our focus did something similar (alternator had gone short circuit). Pop the bonnet and see how warm the alternator is, but don’t do it with the engine spinning.

£300+ for recon alternator and blessed my tool OCD for the 16mm ring spanner I had.

If the battery is dead would it not just die die though – is it quite common to come back to life?!

If I were to jump it from wifes car I guess that would support battery theory

most likely is a poor connection on one of the main leads positive or neg

Works with low power but wont power the starter

Battery is the first place to look as it may be flat

If the connectors are good check the battery is not flat

Other option is main power lead to fuse box

Neither of those is hard to fix

Thanks – I shall have a look at battery, alternator and main leads in the day light tomorrow!

Don’t need it urgently so have some time to explore!

flux capacitor, back to the future for a repair

Differential gurdle spring?

Open bonnet, grab negative lead and give it a yank. There might be two, battery to chassis, and battery to engine block. If either comes off at one end or the other, that’s your problem.

Also, get a multimeter and check battery is 12.4 to 12.7 volts (50-100% charge)

Re-reading your post, sounds more like a dud battery. Get it jump started and see if the battery starts charging (14.4v).

give it a yank

I like that approach – will also take my hammer!

If it’s a very sudden you’ve got full power, then you’ve none in the blink of an eye. I’d say this…

Open bonnet, grab negative lead and give it a yank. There might be two, battery to chassis, and battery to engine block. If either comes off at one end or the other, that’s your problem.

If it’s more dieing, picking up, dieing, probably battery/alternator related.

Its instant on off – like the lead is being pulled of the battery – there is no gradual drain at all.

Like an on off switch is being flicked!

Hopefully it will just be a lead somewhere obvious!

Only time I’ve ever had to call out breakdown recovery, was when my earth lead snapped in McDonald’s carpark just outside of Middlesborough at about 1am… Such a simple thing as well and I had nothing to fix it with.

Immobiliser fault?

Earth strap?

Just read that again. I’m guessing the tick is the solenoid….it’s weird thateverything’s reset. You wouldn’t expect that from the usual culprits, like immob, sticky starter…. Could well be an iffy battery, or maybe a bad earth may be generating enough power for the solenoid to click, but nothing else. Might not be so straight forward to diagnose.

Battery.

It will kill the clock and radio presets if it’s gone flat.

I bet on a battery. Modern ish ones tend to expire with little warning. Those symptoms sound familiar and jumping doesn’t normally help/ work. Whole new battery was the only cure the three or four times I’ve encountered it in last 15 years or so.

If the yank test doesn’t work, a second check is to use a jumplead to connect the negative terminal to the engine block and see if the symptoms disappear. You are just providing a temporary earth and this is the easiest way to get moving if the earth strap fails. (which can be scary, leaving you broken down, quite possibly in the dark, with no lights to make you visible. One particularly strong argument for a warning triangle!)

BITD I’d have said that it sounds like a regulator fault,however as these tend to be included in the alternator these day’s it’s most likely that.

Check the date on the battery.

I had a problem with electrics randomly cutting on our c-max. Turned out one of the plugs was in the passenger footwell behind the carpet/glovebox and it had been knocked loose by someone’s feet. Plugged it back in and everything was back to normal. The garage through it was a £500 new dashboard electrics system needed!

Sounds like a grub driven reactor sprocket to me, looking at £750 as a minimum I would expect.

Is it dying when you put the key in or when you turn the key?

A previous car had a head gasket go allowing coolant to leak into one of the cylinders. Turn key and the starter motor would try (briefly) to kick the engine over whilst compressing a cylinder full of water against closed valves. Starter motor would try and pull all the amps in the world, killing everything else electrical in the process but still fail to generate sufficient oomph to compress the water. Of course, it was very much dependent on where in the 4 stroke cycle the engine came to rest – if the leaky cylinder wasn’t about to start it’s compression stroke, the car started just fine. Also, it took a wee while for the cylinder to fill sufficiently – if the car was in daily use, no starting problems.

As a quick check, (assuming it’s petrol), pull the spark plugs and see if it’s any happier about turning over

I had a similar issue. Car would start fine, then driving along everything would die. Off. Nothing. Then a turn of the ignition off/on and it would be ok.

This happened, only a couple of times but once night and once at dusk in the pi$$ing rain driving down hill, no lights, windscreen wipers etc. Somewhat scary.

Turns out it was a dodgy ignition barrel. New ignition barrel and new keys and issue sorted.. wasn’t cheap though, I seem to recall.

Ha could be anything then! Will start with the easy stuff!

I had a problem with electrics randomly cutting on our c-max. Turned out one of the plugs was in the passenger footwell behind the carpet/glovebox and it had been knocked loose by someone’s feet.

Snap had exactly the same happen on ours.

More recently had a intermittent fault on the Cmax going into limp mode, then would be fine again finally had virtually the same issue as the OP.

Transpired the alternator was dying/died and was pulling too much current back from the battery.

New Delco alternator from Eurocarparts fixed the issue, battery was brought back to life with a battery conditioner(clever battery charger).

If the yank test doesn’t work, a second check is to use a jumplead to connect the negative terminal to the engine block and see if the symptoms disappear. You are just providing a temporary earth and this is the easiest way to get moving if the earth strap fails. (which can be scary, leaving you broken down, quite possibly in the dark, with no lights to make you visible. One particularly strong argument for a warning triangle!)

Well I never – the jump lead from the battery to the engine blocked turned it over instantly no issues – yank didn’t find anything but its obviously a faulty earth lead somewhere!!!

Thanks spooky_b329 – saved me a lot of pain!

*like 🙂

Just got to pull the leads off and make sure there is a nice clean connection. Use copper or conductive grease.