[burnrubber4.0]

leaving wal mart the other night my lights began to dim and my radio stoped working..i push the volume button in and it says "low battery" on the display. then i notice my battery guage is red and totally dead. soon after that and now totally freaked out, my ABS light came on and my headlights went out. i pulled into the highschool parking lot and put it in park and shut the engiine off to have a looksy under the hood...well no loose connections i could find to the alternator or anything else apparent. getting back in the car to start it up, CLICK CLICK my starter solenoid clicks and no start. wow now im mad. luckily enough i had my buddy with me and we tried jumping it...while it was connected to his car everything was fine, but as soon as we unconnected my battery guage went down and all my systems failed but the motor ran ok, but i couldnt shift out of park! finally we decided to jump it, shift into drive while i was hooked up to his battery and i tried drivin home. i got 1 mile and my motor died and i coasted into the skymart convenient store. i called my dad and we decided to try a new battery and the car actully ran fine with no flaws for 2 days after. but lastnight i was taking my gf home and my battery guage died and everything else soon after so we had to pull it home with my dads truck. today i took off my CAI and livewire with everything back to stock i took it to my ford dealer and they said they would have a look and get back at me. does this sound like the same case as the leaky firewall seal that causes the 550$ short to all of you or not? thanfully my car is inder extended 100000 mi warranty. suggestions and answers are geatly appreciated, thanks

[stlwagon]

Yes... Check for a leak on the passenger side front. Smart Junction Box in the passenger kick panel may be water damaged.

[OSXFreak]

Wow talk about Flashbacks. I have to be honest, a simular situation ahppened to me to the point the car did not start. Had to get it towed. This was 1.5 - 2 years ago. I have it towed to a shop that is close to work and with no techs on site as it was afterwork and they take a look at it in the AM, Surprise, Surprise every thing is working. But what you described is exactly what happened to me.
As a matter of fact, the same or simular thing happened to me yesterday. I took it to the shop, as the dash freaked out, and I was now honored to have running lights after the freak out, but they said it was totally related to the Cowl TSB and would fix that... After a call to warranty, they contacted dealer and worked it out so all I pay is deductable for the new electrical computer. This is not covered under warranty, althought I did not have 100K I did have extended, that covered electronics and still not covered go figure.

Anyhow just to be safe, take it in and have them do the TB fix on it even if everything is running fine. I wish I had known about the issue a couple years ago.

Chip

[stlwagon]

It's odd how many cars we're starting to see with this issue. Makes me want to pull the cowl and check mine to be safe.

[burnrubber4.0]

so should i just tell them about the tb fix when i go back if they havent already found the problem which is something easy and will they know what the tb fix is?

[OSXFreak]

Yes do tell them about the TB or ask them if the TB is the same issue your having. Even if it's not related and they find it to be another issue, I'd get them to fix this TB as well.

Chip

[burnrubber4.0]

yea they called me toaday and said the alternator was def. bad and a new one was due to be in tomorrow...ill still have em check out the tb problem though..i wonder if ford has caught this problem yet tho? it seems to be a pretty common and expensinve fix youd think theyd have caught it or atleast had dealers recall them and fix em

[EVANLA_33]

Anyone have pics or info where to find this & fix it. I would like to prevent this incase my warrnaty runs out or they wont cover it probley anyways.

[hatawna]

from the very start the whole story sounded alternator problem to me. ive experienced this several times w/ different cars. what i do is to make a quick check on the battery by touching both terminals using pliers or any piece of metal that's long enough to join them both. the idea is to see whether there's a strong spark, weak, or if there's any. if the spark is weak or if there's none, then its the alternator. if it's strong then i'll look elsewhere. process of elimination takes you to the root of the problem.

and don't worry, 12V wont kill you...

[Vlad]

Its the amps that kills you.

[Black05Pony]

Originally Posted by hatawna

and don't worry, 12V wont kill you...

Be aware that 12v CAN kill you, but it won't. The current (or amp draw) is what actually stops your heart and it can happen at .05 amps if the current moves across the heart. Luckily your skin resists the voltage resulting in no current flow.

With 120v you will feel the shock versus 12v where you wont feel anything. The reason for this is that 120v 'pushes' harder to get through and the resistance of your skin isn't enough, so current is allowed to pass through your body.

A car battery can generate up to 100 amps when the motor is cranking over.

If the resistance of your skin were drastically decreased, like if your hands were wet, then it would take far less voltage to penetrate your skin and allow current to flow.

Not terribly important, but still important things to know if you're going to poke around under your own hood. 12v won't kill you under normal circumstances but circumstances aren't always normal.

[xchris]

Originally Posted by burnrubber4.0

yea they called me toaday and said the alternator was def. bad and a new one was due to be in tomorrow...ill still have em check out the tb problem though..i wonder if ford has caught this problem yet tho? it seems to be a pretty common and expensinve fix youd think theyd have caught it or atleast had dealers recall them and fix em

I had to do this a couple times, if i had seen your thread earlier i could of told you it was your alternator. I seemed to have fixed the problem by finding a higher amp battery to replace the stocker, mine is something like 120 amps more then the stock one the number 590 sticks in my head for this battery but im not 100% sure.

You'll prolly be fine for another year or so before the alternator does bad again, i dunno what the deal is but i went through 4 and i thought almost 5 but the 5th time ended up being a bad battery

[hatawna]

i totally agree...that's why in my post i said 12v WONT kill you. besides, it would only take at least 0.25sec to find out if there's a spark or not, and if it's strong or not. definitely not a killer nor even a stunner.

well, i wouldn't even dare do this while the motor is running. i ONLY do this when the motor has died to see if a faulty charging system or battery caused it or not.

should have been more clear beforehand about this to avoid being taken out of context.

[BullMeister]

Originally Posted by hatawna

from the very start the whole story sounded alternator problem to me. ive experienced this several times w/ different cars. what i do is to make a quick check on the battery by touching both terminals using pliers or any piece of metal that's long enough to join them both. the idea is to see whether there's a strong spark, weak, or if there's any. if the spark is weak or if there's none, then its the alternator. if it's strong then i'll look elsewhere. process of elimination takes you to the root of the problem.

and don't worry, 12V wont kill you...

Put a screwdriver across both terminals on a car battery and you'll instantly weld the screwdriver to the terminals. Tried it once as a curious 10 year old with a spare battery in the garage. Took a couple frantic yanks to break the screwdriver free of the terminals and I never told my folks what I'd done.

It's also not good for the battery. A direct short will generate massive amounts of heat in the battery. Do something like that for a minute and you'll have a battery meltdown or in the case of a sealed battery, you'll be picking pieces of battery out of your hide.

You're right. 12 volts won't kill you but as little as 1 amp through your heart can. Most car batteries put out 120-180 amps and with a direct short across the terminals it's all flowing through that screwdriver. That's why you can rod weld with a car battery.