Tonight my dad was driving home from work on i90 doing 55 mph and his car just shut off and he heard a pop/bang of some sort. He got it over to the shoulder and the car wont restart. The lights, power windows, radio, etc all work but nothing happens when the key is turned. No clicks or anything like that.
He said the odometer got all screwy when it shut off but now its fine. No smoke or fluid loss when it happened. The car was running and driving fine until it shut off.
The serpentine belt is intact.
The car is a 2005 Ford Focus with a 2.0 I4 and automatic transmission. Its only got 67k.
He ended up getting it towed to Metro Ford. Im just curious as to what it might be.
Im thinking timing belt or alternator. No battery light on prior to shutting off though.
Did he check through the fuses? I doubt thats the case b/c of the noise, but its odd that the starter doesn’t even at least click. Could he have possibly hit something in the road?
The guy from AAA checked the relays/fuses under the hood. I dont think anybody tried jumpstarting it but there wasnt room to do that safely where the car was anyway.
I would have to say something electrical. Doesn’t sound mechanical that the speedometer would go wonky then be fine again. I say recheck fuses and relays, and if you have a code scanner check for codes. I know you said its at the dealer, but that’s what I would do.
I dont have a scanner. He just figured the dealer would be able to look at it and possibly fix it quicker than a smaller shop because he needs it back asap.
They told him the cable snapped off because it was all corroded.
Theres also another short somewhere in the car that theyre gonna fix next week that causes the idiot lights to flicker on and off. Its actually been doing that for quite a while.
I actually had that happen on my jeep. So that loud noise he hear was probably the wire arcing like hell against the block. Lucky he didn’t fry any sensitive electronics.