My 2015 Ford Focus Hatchback (2.0 L Engine, I think) has an intermittent issue where the car won’t start. Starter solenoid doesn’t even click. Battery was 6 years old and just changed with brand new battery two days ago. Issue remains. Mechanic checked all the obvious (alternator, etc.) Where else should a mechanic look? Ths is an automatic transmission, if it matters…that variable speed design of which I forget the proper name. Feels like driving a manual transmission.
If you need to do something like press on the brake to start the car, there’s a chance that the switch which indicates the brake is pressed isn’t working.
The brake switch which interlocks the starter usually also works the tail stop lights, so you can test the switch by working the brake pedal while looking at the brake lights (either reflected off another surface, or a helper saying when they see the lights turn on).
With the engine off, have someone stand in front of the car and look at the headlights. Turn on the headlights. Do they work? If they do not work, then that tells us something. If they do work, turn the key to the start position. Do the headlights stay on, or turn off, when the key is turned to the start position?
Update: It seems to die at will. Four times of five now, it died while running. The car looses all power. Then, when you try to start the car (with a key), nothing. Not even a click of the solenoid. I remind you this is a brand new battery. It seems to be if the car sits awhile, it will restart like nothing is wrong. HOWEVER!
The opposite is true, too. The fifth time (not actually in any order), we were at a shopping center. We stopped to use a walk-up ATM. How long can that take? Sure enough, the car was totally dead. It sat for several hours waiting for the tow truck. The car started.
Presently, the car is at the shop waiting to be looked at. I should add no “check engine” light appears, and there are no codes to be read as we had that checked out. Sometimes, the dash will give a meassage “Starting System Failure”, but the message is not mentioned in the owner’s manual.
So whatever it is, it will cause the engine to (sometimes) die while running, and will cause the engine to (sometimes) not start at all. Ugh. I have no idea. Perhaps a problem with the ignition anti-theft system, if so equipped? It could also be a bad battery cable or battery cable termination: such would cause the engine to not start, and a car’s electrical system can become Very Unhappy™ if the engine is running and the battery is suddenly disconnected.
This reminds me of a common problem with 90s Hondas, the main relay gets hot and the contact pins expand, breaking the connection and making the car die. When it cools down, say, in the evening, it fires right up.
Those symptoms are different than you’re experiencing and I assume modern electronics are more robust, so I’m basically just commiserating. It’s a frustrating set of conditions to diagnose.
Hmmm, from that description I’d say something in the starting system (like the relay mentioned above) is going open circuit in when it’s warm.
I had a Ford Ranger that had a fuel pump that would go open circuit when it was warm. It’d run fine to where you were going, but after it sat in the sun, it would crank forever, but not fire. When the mechanics would test it out in the morning, it’d always fire right up. It took quite some time before one accidentally tested it in the afternoon and reproduced the issue.
I had the same issue with a late 90s Land Rover Freelander. Seemed to be worse if you stopped for 5 mins to nip into a shop. Come back out and the car would refuse to start. Call recovery and by the time they arrived it would have cooled down and would start with no issue. Took me about 3 months to track that problem down.
My Adventure Wagon had a too-long coil wire that touched the fender wall. Same symptoms as above. Ran great, stop and then no go till it cooled down. I found a small crack where it touched and must have been getting hot and grounding out. Corrected that and haven’t had a problem since.
Pure Dumb Luck (well, mostly. I was looking at everything..)
The OP’s car won’t even crank, so … Good Luck tracking that down.
