Car Won't Start - Help !!!

[jon75]

Hello, - I've had an intermittent problem for the last month or so in that if the car is left stood for over 1 day without being used, sometimes it has difficulty starting i.e turn on ignition, hear clicking noise but not starting - but usually it starts at the 3rd or 4th attempt. However, this morning (after the car not being used yesterday) it would not start at all - it seems to be trying to turn over - there is some vibration in the engine but no actual turning over can be heard - but other than this and the clicking noise, no real attempt to start. Also when I turn the key and try to start, the headlights come on (the lights are switched to off) - is this normal ?

Does this point to a faulty battery ?

Any help gratefully appreciated - I had an important business meeting as well this morning - I suppose it serves me right for not sorting this earlier !!!

Regards

[Christopher]

Almost certainly a dead battery yes - mine had (almost) exactly those symptoms and a new battery cured it instantly!

HTH

[Tom Collins]

Sounds like the battery to me, but not sure about the headlights though. That seems a bit odd.

[Zeb]

Battery....the headlights or other lights flashing on and off is common....it is the electronics going wappy due to a lack of juice.

[GERFIX]

Battery! Had exactly the same problem when I got my ZT - my 525TDS suffered from a dead battery due to the resultant lack of usehttp://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/forum/images/icons/icon12.gif.

[JohnDotCom]

I Concur with the above Statements,
Yes Change the Battery!

[Keith]

One quick fix is a spare battery and jump leads
(I use my old 75 battery which is now on my tractor)

you don't need a lot of current so even cheap and nasty jump leads will do all you are effectively doing is using the other battery to raise the voltage high enough for the electronics to be happy then the car will start as usually the cars battery has more than enough current to start the car but not enough volts hence all the flashing

If I spend too much time playing about with things over the weekend in the garage then if I don't put the battery on charge I get the same problem.