Hi all,

has anyone had an intermittent starting fault? Sometimes car will start no problem, other times won’t start at all, I am also hearing a humming noise on the left hand side glovebox area, when it’s like this I don’t get any lights on the dashboard, when I eventually get it going I have to turn off the radio, fan and the interior light and depress the clutch, I have recently had the battery changed and have had a diagnostic run on it by bs motors they have advised it is showing a pcm failure does this sound right because if it’s failed surely the car wouldn’t start at all?

Thank you 

Becky 

stuff like this can be a real problem to fix. I think it is more likely to be a bad electrical connection somewhere. They may be saying it is a PCM fault as they can not communicate with the PCM or it is showing a PCM communication fault code.  But that might be just because there is one dodgy pin connection in  a large multi pin connector plug which is causing an intermittent problem. if you can not do any work on this yourself it can easily turn into a money pit. someone could easily spend two hours checking all the connectors under panels/carpet etc and charge you accordingly and it do the same thing the next day

and I don't think a faulty PCM would stop the dashboard lights coming on when you turn the key. When you do get the starter motor to work, does it sound like it spins the engine at the right kind of speed or does it sound like the starter motor struggles. Could be a dodgy earth connector  (on a car, the earth is where the negative terminal wire connects to the car metal body so the metal body is one big negative electrical terminal. Not to be confused with 'earth' on house mains power which is something totally different. Confusing using the same word 'earth')

Thank you for replying, it’s definitely a frustrating fault I know that! 🙂