Failure to start

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holind

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Hopefully someone can give a clue. I came home yesterday with the car running fine apart from the indicators being intermittent. The real problem started when I tried to start the car again later that evening. It failed to turn over or even attempt to start. I can hear the fuel pump running when I turn the key but the engine makes no attempt to turn over. The battery is OK, I've checked the fuses, could it be the ECU?
This is a 2000 A2 1.4 petrol. Any suggestions would be very helpful.
 
Hi,

Do you have any lights on the dash when you turn the key?
Do you have any interior lights?
If you turn on the headlights, do the come on?
How often is the car serviced?

You could have a failed battery or a bad earth or maybe starter motor failure, how have you checked the battery?

Cheers

Jeff
 
It sounds as though you have a poor earth between the engine and chassis. The easiest way to confirm this is to measure the voltage between the engine block and chassis when attempting to start it, if you get more than 0.25V drop then you've found the problem.

The earth is via a cable and this runs from the bottom of the starter motor to under the nearside headlight, in most cases there'll be corrosion on the headlight end of the cable. Just remove, clean up and re-fit. Job done!
 
Yes, all lights on dash as normal, interior lights, headlights etc. working OK
Car serviced as and when it requests it but usually annually around the time the MOT is due.

I've just disconnected and reconnected the battery, just as a trial.
Had car from new, never a problem like this before



Mustang-owner said:
Hi,

Do you have any lights on the dash when you turn the key?
Do you have any interior lights?
If you turn on the headlights, do the come on?
How often is the car serviced?

You could have a failed battery or a bad earth or maybe starter motor failure, how have you checked the battery?

Cheers

Jeff
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the advice. After some faffing about I now know for certain that it's a faulty starter motor.
 
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