Hey Guys,

 

posting on behalf of my Miss's, getting a random issue with her car where it's either a power drain or something more sinister where it just decides its doesn't want to tick over or feels like it can't.

First time it happened it was freezing cold and I put it down to the miss's overdoing it trying to start the engine and draining the battery and not giving the diesel time to warm up properly, happens in my car every now and then when it's proper cold.

the second time was last night after she'd driven it back from work and left it less than an hour, went to go and low and behold it's not having it. It gets about two attempts in to starting and it just seems like its struggling and then the starter motor sounds like machine gun fire.

That's not the best description but I don't know how else to describe a car starting. The only thing that fixed it last time was a full battery charge, if anyones had this experience and has had it fixed or has ideas that'll be great.

 

Cheers

Looks like a simple (and common) case of a dead battery to me. Weak batteries tend to go kerplunk when the weather starts to get colder, and you don't get enough Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) to turn the engine over to start it. If you have a multimeter check the voltage when it won't turn over.

i agree dieing battery most likely.   my wife's mazda2 was making the same machine gun noise about three weeks ago . battery no good. new battery and it's fine. checked voltage first which indicated this, and afterwards on tickover with high load - lights,hrw etc, and revving to check alternator is charging fine (voltage rising when taking it a bit above tickover) 

I reckon it makes the noise because:

there is enough voltage to activate starter solenoid. solenoid then connects the power to the starter motor coils, they use a ton of power, battery can not cope, causes voltage drop to the level where solenoid can not stay engaged so it clicks off. but once the starter coils are disconnected from the power the battery voltage rises again to a level where the solenoid activates again, but then the starter motor coils cause the voltage drop again so solenoid disengages and it goes on like this making the clicking noise as the solenoid constantly engages and disengages. I suspect this may cause sparking of the contacts inside the solenoid which will erode the contacts, so probably not a good idea to keep doing it. 

But of course bad battery connections could cause it. make sure you check voltage of battery by using the actual posts on the battery as that will show voltage of the battery without bad connectors interfering with the reading.   Good battery would normally be about 12.6volts after standing a few hours.   If measuring immediately after turning engine off it would normally be about 13.2volts.  with engine running/charging it should go above 14 volts. 

I had the exact same problem. Couple weeks ago I drove my Fiesta to Uni and parked up... all fine nothing wrong. After it had been snowing (just after dinnertime), the car wouldn't start due to a lack of CCA. You'll note the other electrics will most likely work (my wipers moved slower than normal etc). Moved it after I hooked up jump leads. Replaced the battery and everything is fine now.