Jas5

What's your vote? Hoping maybe someone had these same symptoms. I do know that battery and alternator work together so it's very difficult to know which one it is without replacing things. Skip to last paragraph for cliffs.



Last Thursday, my car wouldn't start in the morning. (I did not leave lights on, door ajar, etc. My driver's window would move down when opening door, but not back up, so it was left slightly open over the night.) It turned over a few times, but then the starter would just click. Jump started, turned over quickly and started right up.

Drove it around for a couple of days. Then Saturday morning it won't start.. starter just clicks really fast. Jump started, immediately fired up. Drive it to my house and try to start a few hours later, won't start.
I then take the battery out to get tested at o'reillys, tested GOOD after 15-20 minutes. I put it back in my car, jump start. Go to work, then 5 hours later, it starts right up. I go to Autozone and they hook up to my battery and have me start it... guy said starter and battery are good, but the alternator was at 13.8 volts when starting. Recommended is 14-14.2 but 13.8 still is "OK" i believe.

Then on Sunday it started in the morning just fine. Go to gym. Starts fine when leaving gym.
Then this morning, Monday, I had to be jump started. I get to work and try to lock my doors using my keypad but they won't lock, so it's probably dead again. I'm going to get a new battery after work and see if that fixes it.


CLIFFS:
SO it looks as though the battery is weak and cannot hold its charge through the long night. There was only one time where I jump started it, drove it, and then it wouldnt start a few hours later. All other instances I had to jump it in the morning only.
If the car wont start in the morning with a new battery, i'll take the alternator out to get bench tested.

2k232

Could take the batt & alt to have it tested at autozone.

onederful100

i vote alt.
my dad has same problem, but haven't fixed yet. tried new battery, same problem, next we will try alt.
or something is draining your battery.
been searching the web, and found some have faulty alternators.
but we will have to trouble shoot and go step by step to find what exactly the problem is.

Jas5

Thanks..
I do believe that it still has the original 5 year old battery so it couldn't hurt to get a new one anyways. I have a warranty, alternator is covered, so shouldn't be a big deal to get fixed at Ford

BleedinBlue

His thread said he only did that twice, i guess a third time may do the trick.

I vote alternator.

04AZUREBLUEMACH1

Trickle charge the battery for as long as you can. I would recommend a minimum of 24 hours, but if you can go longer, do it. You can get Advance Auto or somewhere similar to do it for you if you don't have the equipment.

I had a similar issue and although a jump-start would seemingly cure it temporarily, it wasn't enough to really charge the battery thoroughly.

Jas5

What good would trickle charging do? I mean if either the battery or alternator are bad, it will end up just dying again.
Did you end up replacing your battery, and problem went away? It feels like my alternator charges the battery through the day (after morning jump start) since it is able to restart many times, but then the battery just cannot hold charge through the night. My radar detector broke and I remove my head unit cover so couldn't imagine anything is sucking juice.

I'm tempted to just take my alternator off and get it bench tested, cause I still may have a "good" battery. Alternator is very accessible, i've done dozens of alternator changes

One thing I didn't mention is my idle will dip low when driving since this problem started, down to 500 rpm. I'll be in gear, driving, then when I go to neutral it dips way down to 500, then back to 750 after 5-10 seconds

DRAGUL

Replace the battery it is the cheaper of the two. The battery is possibly original you stated, so therefore it is already time to replace it. If it was not weak it is now from all the running down and recharging. And a low charge battery can kill a alternator. A alternator is meant to maintain a charge, not recharge from dead.

wcgman

Used to see this all the time when I was a Pep Boys back in the day. Heat kills batteries and if Oklahoma has been an oven like a lot of other places, chances are it's the battery. This is where I agree with Dragul as the stock batteries were a mixed bag on how good they were to begin with. My 06 always had problems so I'd recommend throwing an Optima red top in there and be done with it. If it were the alternator, you'd be dying more on the road I'd think...

bismark64

Get a new battery.