Chat Today my A2 failed to proceed !

M

marcheysham

Member
Filled up with diesel today and car wouldn't start afterwards, not so much as a click from the starter motor, some helpful guy helped me push it off the forecourt and offered a jump start !
Battery was good (new) and no obvious loose connections on starter motor so had to call breakdown service who turned up quite quickly and went through a number of checks, including checking we had volts at the starter when I turned the key. He ended up using his booster pack to get power direct to starter terminals and off I went, diagnosed as loose/faulty connector somewhere, got it home, forwards on the drive fortunately as it won't start again now in order to strip and remake all connections...........
What fun...
 
What about the battery clamps? I had exactly the same problem a few years ago (not on an A2). If jump started from another battery with cables clipped onto the cable clamps, it would start fine, and then run fine. Undo the cables, still run fine. Switch off, could not restart, not even a click from the starter motor. Battery out of car using jump cables, would start (ie the in-car battery was fully charged). The battery terminals were perhaps not perfect and the battery clamps on the positive were 25 years old. AA helped me out and suggested the solution after we found overtightening the positive clamp worked- I replaced the positive clamp and it has never been a problem since.
 
Robin_Cox said:
What about the battery clamps? I had exactly the same problem a few years ago (not on an A2). If jump started from another battery with cables clipped onto the cable clamps, it would start fine, and then run fine. Undo the cables, still run fine. Switch off, could not restart, not even a click from the starter motor. Battery out of car using jump cables, would start (ie the in-car battery was fully charged). The battery terminals were perhaps not perfect and the battery clamps on the positive were 25 years old. AA helped me out and suggested the solution after we found overtightening the positive clamp worked- I replaced the positive clamp and it has never been a problem since.
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I've already been caught by that one, sort of! When I recently bought the car, the vendor said the battery was weak and indeed the symptoms confirmed it, only when I came to fit the lovely expensive NEW one did I realise that the clamps were actually loose. Always good to have a spare battery..............…..
 
The cable connection at the base of the ABS unit frame was corroded and the thread stripped so moved that cable to the engine mount, the forward facing connection directly behind the NS headlamp was also corroded so cleaned up and refitted. Now starts fine but fingers crossed as it also started this morning before work commenced.....
 
marcheysham said:
The cable connection at the base of the ABS unit frame was corroded and the thread stripped so moved that cable to the engine mount, the forward facing connection directly behind the NS headlamp was also corroded so cleaned up and refitted. Now starts fine but fingers crossed as it also started this morning before work commenced.....
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Good to hear it started, and well done for still checking the parts; a bit of routine maintenance never goes amiss anyway :)
 
sciroccorrado said:
Good to hear it started, and well done for still checking the parts; a bit of routine maintenance never goes amiss anyway :)
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It was lovely weather here when I did the work, ideal for working on the drive, if I had left it until it failed again, it would have been somewhere inconvenient and doubtless in pouring rain
 
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