Posted: 11/24/2011 6:42:50 AM EDT
|
Seems my 2.0 dies if battery is not fully charged. When I jump it, it starts but doesn't run long. While running with a low battery the dash gauges and light goes crazy. All the lights starts blinking off and on and the gauge needles are bouncing back and forth.
If I put a full charge on the battery it runs for a couple days OK ant then all of a sudden the engine dies. Autozone says the battery is good. It's has 750 cca but Autozone says it has 525 cca. I have replaced the coil pac twice. No.2 cylinder keeps going bad. Help would be appreciated. |
|
Hell, we bought the car used 2 years ago and I'm thinking the battery could be 4 or 5 years old.
The coil pack has been replaced twice. It would start missing on No.2 cylinder but straighten out when coil pack was replaced. I'm thinking this is a different issue from what is going on with the battery. When it does run now it feels it has a slight miss. Oh, by the way.................Happy Thanksgiving. |
I'd get the alternator checked first. Also look around for an electrical drain on your battery when everything is supposed to be off. Insert an ammeter in series with the battery positive lead and see what is going on. DO NOT TRY TO START THE CAR WITH THE AMMETER IN THE CIRCUIT! 
Also, check out Focus Fanatics. Lots of Foci owners over there. P. edit: 5 years is pretty good for a battery |
|
Quoted:
Hell, we bought the car used 2 years ago and I'm thinking the battery could be 4 or 5 years old. The coil pack has been replaced twice. It would start missing on No.2 cylinder but straighten out when coil pack was replaced. I'm thinking this is a different issue from what is going on with the battery. When it does run now it feels it has a slight miss. Oh, by the way.................Happy Thanksgiving. The first thing I would do is to have the altnator checked if it is ok I would start checking for a bad ground. I have seen bad ground connections cause all kinds of weird stuff like this. Start with the ground to the battery and work your way backwards checking each connection for dirty or loose or broken wires. Besure to check the engine to frame and body to frame connections as well. |
|
Tonight I started the car and turned the head lights on to see if there was a differecne in brightness from idle to high rpm. I read that if the alternator was bad it would go from dim to bright as the motor rev'ed higher rpm's.
The lights stayed bright from low to high rpm's. Tomorrow I will start the car and remove the neg. battery cable to see if the car continues to run or dies. I'll check ground wires also. Thanks |
|
Quoted:
Tonight I started the car and turned the head lights on to see if there was a differecne in brightness from idle to high rpm. I read that if the alternator was bad it would go from dim to bright as the motor rev'ed higher rpm's. The lights stayed bright from low to high rpm's. Tomorrow I will start the car and remove the neg. battery cable to see if the car continues to run or dies. I'll check ground wires also. Thanks [red]DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT remove the battery cable while the engine is running [/red] it can cause a spike in the voltage which can kill your alt. and computer and then you get to spend some big $$$$. Just take your car to your local parts store they can check the battery and the charging system in the parking lot. I know that advance and auto zone both do this and as the poster above said make sure your battery in full of water |
|
Quoted: THIS!!Quoted: Tonight I started the car and turned the head lights on to see if there was a differecne in brightness from idle to high rpm. I read that if the alternator was bad it would go from dim to bright as the motor rev'ed higher rpm's. The lights stayed bright from low to high rpm's. Tomorrow I will start the car and remove the neg. battery cable to see if the car continues to run or dies. I'll check ground wires also. Thanks [red]DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT remove the battery cable while the engine is running [/red] it can cause a spike in the voltage which can kill your alt. and computer and then you get to spend some big $$$$. Just take your car to your local parts store they can check the battery and the charging system in the parking lot. I know that advance and auto zone both do this and as the poster above said make sure your battery in full of water That works on the older cars, not the new ones. DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
|
On everyones advice, I got a ohm meter. 
Battery this morning before starting read 12.2V. After starting the battery read 14.7V. After shutting engine off battery read 13.2V. I take this as the battery and alternator are good and working properly. Any other test I can perform? It will run for a couple days then all of a sudden while driving it just dies and battery act like it's dead. Going out now to replace coil pack because no.2 cylinder is not firing. This will be the 3rd time I have changed coil pack because of this. It runs about 3 month OK then no.2 dies and I have to change pack out. Any ideas why this cylinder keeps dieing? |
|
Quoted:
On everyones advice, I got a ohm meter.
Battery this morning before starting read 12.2V. After starting the battery read 14.7V. After shutting engine off battery read 13.2V. I take this as the battery and alternator are good and working properly. Any other test I can perform? It will run for a couple days then all of a sudden while driving it just dies and battery act like it's dead. Going out now to replace coil pack because no.2 cylinder is not firing. This will be the 3rd time I have changed coil pack because of this. It runs about 3 month OK then no.2 dies and I have to change pack out. Any ideas why this cylinder keeps dieing? 12.2 is low for a normal use vehicle battery. You really do need a load test done. You could have a grounding issue or a cable connection problem or a battery that has a bad internal connection. Quick test would be to drive normally, turn off and unhook the battery, take volt check. Let sit overnight and see what it reads when you check voltage again. It'll drop some but a significant drop means an internal issue. |
|
Quoted:
On everyones advice, I got a ohm meter.
Battery this morning before starting read 12.2V. After starting the battery read 14.7V. After shutting engine off battery read 13.2V. I take this as the battery and alternator are good and working properly. Any other test I can perform? It will run for a couple days then all of a sudden while driving it just dies and battery act like it's dead. Going out now to replace coil pack because no.2 cylinder is not firing. This will be the 3rd time I have changed coil pack because of this. It runs about 3 month OK then no.2 dies and I have to change pack out. Any ideas why this cylinder keeps dieing? GO back and read my first post and your little check with the ohm meeter means nothing goto the parts store and have them check the system with a load bank. As I said before check for a bad ground |
|
A big THANK YOU to everyone. Car running good now. Here's what was wrong. Coil pack bad and replaced. Spark plug wire no.2 bad, all replaced. Ground wire bad and replaced. Altenator seems to be doing fine and battery looks good.
Thanks for pointing me in the direction on getting a multimeter............this ole boy will never be without one again. All is well "South of Salt River". |
|
Well sadly to say it reared it's ugly head again. Died last night. Jumped it this morning and took it to autozone. They charged battery and ran a battery/starter/altenator test. Battery good, starter good, alternator test failed. Got it home and used the multimeter to check volts while running. Meter showed 12.6v while running.
Autozone said before paying the money ($160) for new alternator check all the ground wires first. I know the battery ground wire but where would the others be? |
|
if it is easy to get to, yank the alt anyway. take it in and have them test it stand alone.
if it still shows bad replace it. there are a crap load of grounds on new cars since that is how they get reference voltages. start by checking wires bolted to the block, and any wires coming off the neg of the battery. just start tracing them to see where other grounds are. the computer should have one to the body as well. |
|
Quoted:
Checked what grounds I could. All look tight and in good shape. Trying to wrestle the altenator out now. Is there a slick way to get that thing out? Got it loose but no wat to get it between the block and fan shroud. What did you find out OP is the altenator bad or what |
|
focus are horrible with alternators.
have been for a long time it seems wife had a 2007. can help walk you through replacing it if your taking it on yourself. I had a huge 3 hour long fight with replacing ours until I figured it out the term work smarter not harder applied and I had it swapped in ten minutes |
|
Quoted:
not familar enough to help. going to be a turn it till it fits thing is my bet. or you will have to yank the fan shroud. Fan shroud is the key. Actually it's pretty easy once I figured out the fan shroud can be unlatched/unhooked and "dropped out of the way". Don't try to pull it up and out of the car, once unhooked drop it down. Car running good for now. |