How's this for weird?

[Mark K 2]

I thought my starter was going out. I had my oil changed last week and the dealer did the usual bumper-to-bumper inspection. At three years old, the battery tested at 95% of new. Fast forward to yesterday. The truck would barely turn over at work 20 miles away. Low crank speed with sounds coming from the starter. No clicking or vibrating relays heard. It's the original starter at 177,000 miles. I had the battery tested at the auto parts store there and it tested fine.



Yesterday morning, I got the typical vibrating relay sound with crank. "THAT'S a dead battery," I thought. It popped off and I drove to my local auto parts store to have the battery retested. Failed. Failed easily. No question. New battery fixed the low crank issue.



I had none of the electrical gremlins usually associated with a bad battery.

 

[Richard L]

I had a 2001 and a 2003 Sport Trac each had I had a similar problems with different problems.



My 2001 Sport Trac would occasionaly not start for my wife, but when I got home it started with no problem?? Dealer claimed the battery was fine??? This went on for several months until it finally failed for me. I took it to the dealer again with less than 11 miles left on the warranty and got a new battery.:grin: The old battery had died in less than 3 years. Not sure why they did not find the bad battery problem the first time???



With my 2003 Sport Trac, it did the same thing, but it was actually a problem with the wiring harness in the steering column. This is a common problem with Gen-1 Sport Trac's. It happened a few times at home, but the final failure came when my wife was in Louisiana visiting her sister. She had the truck towed to a local dealer (under warranty), and after a day of testing they finally found that the tilt steering wheel harnes was pulling on the steering column wiring harness and causing the starter circuit to disconnect. The plugged the harness in and gave a little more slack to allow the wheel to tilt, and I never had the problem again.



...Rich:grin:

 

[Richard L]

Hmmmm??? posted twice??

 

[Duane Foster]

A bad or broken connection inside the battery will act like that. Sometimes it works just fine, and the next time, nothing. I had one a few years ago that I knew was bad. I delivered and sold batteries at the wholesale level for almost 9 years, and dealt with a lot of warranties, so I knew the symptoms. Battery tested good on the quick test they gave it. I insisted he put it through the longer test where it cycles through a load several times. Checked back an hour later, and sure enough it was bad.

 

[EddieS'04]

Duane, I have had the same issue, twice. Second time I knew what it was.....:banghead: