Hi,

 

I have owned this car for six months now. Its great apart from one thing...

 

Every so often, it refuses to start. Its done it to me three times now, and almost didn't start a few more times.

 

I have had the car fully serviced including fuel filter. Also had the DMF and clutch replaced as was original and starting to make noises. Car has done 124k miles.

 

About three weeks ago, it refused to start. It had been parked up for about 20 hours. AA man came out and reported everything seemed fine, but could be the battery getting lazy as it was the original. (It was a pretty chilly night the night before).

 

I have since put in a bosch S5 096 battery. I thought this would fix the problem once and for all.

 

Three days ago, same again. Refused to start. Again, car was parked up for about 20 hours. It tried to turn over, and the rev counter was reading about 250 revs.

 

I jump started it off a friends car, and after some persistent turning of the key, it grudgingly fired up. A little lumpy for the first few seconds, then right as rain. 

 

Since then, I have been measuring the battery voltages.

 

When I parked up last night, the battery read 12.6v. This morning it read 12.5v. Started fine. Its currently reading 12.53v and its been parked up for 8 hours.

 

Alternator is kicking out about 14.2-14.4v so know thats fine. When the AA man came out, he measured the battery at 12.4v, and that was after I had tried to start the car a few times so I dont think there is a drain on the battery anywhere.

 

Its almost like that whatever is the problem, it needs the juice of more than one battery to get it started. Before jump starting, after a while, I get all sorts of other errors come up on the dash relating to all sorts of things. I know these relate to there not being enough juice in the battery to power all the systems while persistently trying to start.

 

What could be wrong? Solenoid? glow plug?

 

Sometimes I can leave the car a couple days and it starts fine, and at other times it struggles after 12 hours.

 

I always leave the car a couple extra seconds after the glow plug light goes out before turning the key.

 

Any help/advice is most appreciated.

 

Andy

Edited 2 December, 201411 yr by abys

Can anyone advise on whats likely to be wrong?

 

Whatever it is, it is very intermittent.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Andy

Something similar happened with my daughters polo. All my efforts trying a different battery, two different starters and checking the flywheel teeth didn't identify the problem. That pointed to an electrical issue as all I had left and it turned out to be a faulty earth strap. It was cheap and if it were happening to me again I'd probably start with an auto spark.

Thanks for the insight.

 

I will confer with the haynes manual and set to locating all the earthing points and checking them all over.

 

I really hope I can identify one thats making a bad contact, and put this to bed once and for all...

 

Thanks again.

Andy