It has been a long time since my last visit, due to having to give up my precious Omega as I have the dreaded Macular Degeneration.
However, my son has asked me a question which has stumped me and I said I knew where to get the answer!
2005 vauxhall astra parked on drive for 4 weeks. Attempt to start failed as battery appears totally dead, nothing whatsoever. battery charger says battery is charged, no glimmer of life. connects car to another by jump leads, still no life whatsoever, just as if there was no battert at all.
Any tips on what we are missing(apart from brain cells)
Many thanks to to those who gave a possible diagnosis for the problem outlined in this post, you were spot on and the crank shaft was changed and now all is well.
Thank you all very much. (clicked on smiley things, but they don't work)
Thanks fellas, Would;nt a crank sensor also cause misfiring and rough running though, or not always ?
Seems to run well enough when its going, I suppose the idea of it being the starter motor can be discounted, and the 'timing belt' code could also really mean crankshaft sensor fault.
Whats a ballpark figure for supply and fit a sensor,, or is it an easy diy job?
I have a Renault Scenic 2005 1.6 16V. Automatic Petrol. Yes, I know...
Anyway after a very long trip to France we started having problems whereby the car would turn over and not start. Thinking it might be the alternator I took it into local mechanics who checked alt & battery and found no problems. On doing a diagnostic they got 'an error message about the starter motor' which they found weird considering it has started perfectly for both me and them that morning several times.
Then they couldn't start it so they plugged it in again and got 'a couple more messages about the timing belt or the cam belt' and said I would need to take it to a main dealer. Which for obvious reasons I would rather avoid doing...
So in summary the car will always start when cold. Then say half an hour later after a drop off it will start again and then it will start again a few mins later. However on about the 4th or 5th try it won't start and you have to wait for it to get 'cold' again before it will start.
Other symptoms are -The dashboard lights are now dimming when we manually turn the lights on. -When idling the 'range' mileage (ie what's left in the tank) display shows the mileage gradually dropping and then it will climb again once we start driving again -The lights don't always come on by themselves any more when they always used to (in tunnels, etc)
When the starting issue happens the car turns over and sort of judders and bumps but won't start. There are no error messages on the dash, either.
So if we can rule out the battery, alternator and possibly the starter motor, we can also rule out the cam belt (I should hope) as this was only re-done less than 2 yrs (10k miles) ago.
Browsing on google I have seen some suggestions saying it might be a faulty sensor etc, and I have no idea about the timing belt? So does anyone have an inkling as to what might be the problem?
My beloved car has been diagnosed as requiring a head gasket, as a result of the HBV giving up and loosing all its water . It has only done 96000 miles and has been running really well . Its mot runs till august and the reg no is dv03llu so you can check out the history.
The oil leak on the last advisory has been fixed.
It is not silver but grey, cant remember what its called just now.
Its in generally good nick bodywise, not full of rust and has a good set of tyres and newish battery.
Cambelt was done about 3 years ago or about 18000 miles.
I will attempt to put some pictures up shortly if I can manage it
If no one is interestd it will be scrapped, but its really too good for that and so its a project opportunity first
Dr Gollum It is so long since my school maths lessons I cannot even remember what to do with figures in brackets etc.
One of my grandsons lives in Finland and his maths book shows a completely different method to my English grandsons, and both are different to my own vague memories.
I made the answer 6.1%, my son says it is 8.4%. I don't know what you made it for the above stated reason, but thank you very much for taking the trouble to reply.