Sometimes car hard to start

Haven't had the problem since early September as I've been busy. Car has been normal up until Friday afternoon when I went to the park for a walk and then the car wouldn't start. Exact same symptoms. Kept cleaning the battery cables and tried my new portable jumpstarter. Nothing. Clean the posts one more time for smiles and giggles and the car finally started. Got the short distance to my brother's apartment and car kept starting normally when I tried it. My brothers little volt reader thing shows battery normal and alternator normal when engine is on. It's been normal this weekend and to work today. Might be normal for another month as far as I know. But this is becoming a pain.

I did read one article saying try my other key since PATs can go flaky. Also read solenoid but easier to replace starter at the same time.

My alternator might be old and tired at 175,000 miles but I still think something else is going on.
 
88LTDCV351 said:
Haven't had the problem since early September as I've been busy. Car has been normal up until Friday afternoon when I went to the park for a walk and then the car wouldn't start. Exact same symptoms. Kept cleaning the battery cables and tried my new portable jumpstarter. Nothing. Clean the posts one more time for smiles and giggles and the car finally started. Got the short distance to my brother's apartment and car kept starting normally when I tried it. My brothers little volt reader thing shows battery normal and alternator normal when engine is on. It's been normal this weekend and to work today. Might be normal for another month as far as I know. But this is becoming a pain.

I did read one article saying try my other key since PATs can go flaky. Also read solenoid but easier to replace starter at the same time.

My alternator might be old and tired at 175,000 miles but I still think something else is going on.
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Try swapping the starter relay with another like relay or a new one.
 
Drive to Ford Store, pay $19 and replace starter relay all together. BUY an extra and keep new and old one for an emergency spares (mark old one w sharpie).

I've had two complex issues: Starting issues, and AC issues... after much blood, sweat, and tears...and futzing around testing stuff, banging on starters, rocking car, replacing various brake stop and AC parts... BOTH ISSUES FIXED by simply replacing the RELAYS.
 
1Marauder said:
Drive to Ford Store, pay $19 and replace starter relay all together. BUY an extra and keep new and old one for an emergency spares (mark old one w sharpie).

I've had two complex issues: Starting issues, and AC issues... after much blood, sweat, and tears...and futzing around testing stuff, banging on starters, rocking car, replacing various brake stop and AC parts... BOTH ISSUES FIXED by simply replacing the RELAYS.
Click to expand...

Remember these cars and their electrical systems are 13 or 14 + years old. Imagine how many times the relays have opened and closed. Relays get weaker every time they are used. Last year I replaced all of mine. Wouldn't hurt to have a couple of spares in the glove box.

A good anti theft device would be to gut an old relay and replace the starter relay with the gutted one.
 
Is the starter relay in the under hood fuse box in front of the battery?


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Car is starting the same not starting issues again. I replaced the starter fuse relay under the hood in the fuse box by the battery and didn't help. So it can't be the fuse relay or the battery What next? Also tried battery booster and cleaning the terminals.
 
My truck was doing this off and on and it ended up being corroded wiring inside the insulation down at the starter. The wiring was literally green dust for about 5-6”s into the insulation. I ended up getting a whole new harness up to the battery from Ford.


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One of the symptoms is I never hear the fuel pump come on. Anyway I went back out 20 minutes later and it fired right up this time
 
justbob said:
My truck was doing this off and on and it ended up being corroded wiring inside the insulation down at the starter. The wiring was literally green dust for about 5-6”s into the insulation. I ended up getting a whole new harness up to the battery from Ford.


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. Probably all parts discontinued for us lol
 
Anyone decent at wiring should be able to repair or replace the harness.
The corrosion inside the wiring is a common problem. Have installed several starters which required replacing a section of the harness for warranty to apply.
Do you have complete loss of power at this point? Power to gauges but no crank?
 
fastblackmerc said:
The AAA jump worked because he has good quality cables.
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Yep, battery in the Ranger failed after 10 years while at work. Co-workers' jumper cables were garbage - thanked him anyway. AAA came out and it lit right off - new battery the next day. Marauder on its second battery. 10+ years for an auto battery has been normal for me when using a Battery Tender for 'maintenance' charging twice a year.

The current Mustang being the exception with 3-4 years tops (heat?). Marauder's first battery wasn't changed out until the year before I bought it - previous owner kept it connected to a Battery Tender year around.
 
I had this same issue, no crank. In my car it was the harness located just above the transmission passenger side which was accessed from underneath. Mine wasn't clipped in properly and the issue was very random, my reverse lights would also not work.

Long story short my car would not start as it was showing that it was in manual 2nd gear when on the scanner (no power to starter relay) . Once harness was cleaned up and clipped back together issue gone and in my case reverse lights also work again.
 
did not equate "no start" to not cranking in the first post. Then, I wondered if he didn't have two things going on here...good comments, thanks for posting, now I'm checking all my wires...even though mine starts OK.
 
The symptoms are everything normal until I turn the key forward where you are supposed to hear the fuel pump whine, but instead silence and the car is dead except for the wacky door locks.

Anyway, car is running fine again for the last few days. So this problem seems to come randomly. Sometimes 6 months later and sometimes 1 month later or sometimes even 9 months later. I'm going to finally have it taken in but i figure they won't know what to do until it actually does it again.
 
Took the car to the stealership to hopefully find out more about my intermittent no crank, no start issue. They checked everything but the problem didn't resurface while the car was there so they weren't able to figure out what the issue might be.
 
So this still happens on occasion but I remembered this time to look at the flashing alarm light. And I noticed this last time when the car wouldn't start when I got stuck at the dental office, it keeps flashing even when I turn the key. From what I can tell when the car does start normally, the alarm light illuminates while the key is turned and solid, not as a flash. Which I assume is the normal operation. So I'm thinking could be my key is getting flaky (so carrying around an extra key now to try next time) or maybe it's that PATS thing?
 
So I think I finally got this one figured out...I think. So I went to the dentist office and it happened again. The car would not start. But I had my extra key on me. I tried the extra key and the car started right up. So I'm thinking my old key is intermittently bad. I think they have a chip in them that the PATs is supposed to detect and apparently this key is on the occasional fritz. I'll start using my extra key as the main key now.
 
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