Ford Fiesta - electrics all over the place!

Basq

OK, apologies in advance if this is all a bit rambly but some pretty maddening happenings with my 07 Ford Fiesta electrics over the last few months.

I’m going to give you a run-down on what I’ve seen lately:

• Remote central locking is a bit sticky.. sometimes takes 3 clicks or so to engage and unlock door
• Turning key in ignition has, on more than one occasion, causes what sounds like the remote central locking to engage and disengage (i’ve been blaming this on fat fingers! )
• More seriously, woke up with a flat battery yesterday. Jumped it, drove is about for a bit and took it to Halfords who ran a check on battery and indicated it’s showing as healthy
• Revs appear to drop quite sharply changing gears - sometimes to an extent that car stalls - or once or twice, it just stalls in neutral. This seems to be more of a problem in last day or two - this was happening a few weeks back then took it to mechanic who cleaned throttle body and seemed to run better for a while.

Any thoughts on what the hell could be going on? I’m at a loss, and am unsure whether these are related or not.. I’ve a mate who has an ODB reader somewhere which I’m hoping *MAY* give me a bit more insight, although I reckon that could be unlikely.

At this stage, I’m close to cutting my losses. Frustrating!

corglass

First guess is battery is bad and Halfords test may not be accurate.

Can you get it checked elsewhere? This weather kills batteries

Basq

^ Yeah.. to be honest.. I've been thinking of just biting the bullet and just getting a new battery. It's the guts of €100 fitted but I could spend 2 - 3 times that just dropping it to various mechanics getting second opinions.

Plus battery was probably well charged from running it yesterday when I had it checked. Plus I only have a 8 minute journey to work each day. Realistically, my mileage could rack up to 30 minutes a day of 4 short journeys so I've a feeling the battery is never really getting properly charged.

There is a Ford battery in it so too and I bought used from a Ford dealer 2 years ago so either:

a) the Ford dealer replaced the battery before re-selling it - unlikely
a) the battery hasn't been changed in 10 years - which I think is more likely

Basq

Basq wrote: »

I’ve a mate who has an ODB reader somewhere which I’m hoping *MAY* give me a bit more insight, although I reckon that could be unlikely.

FYI: did this earlier today. No error codes.. wonder would the flat battery have potentially blasted away any potential error codes.

Tempted to try and grab myself a multimeter somewhere, and give the battery a check myself.

martinr5232

Multimetre wont tell you much other than battery voltage.
Its possible you have a faulty body control module that is effecting your locking and maybe running down the battery.
Battery drain test is what i would do first.