07 ford escape 6cyl xlt with auto transmission and awd
The situation
Driving my car home from work and was waiting on a redlight along with tons of other cars , and the car starts to feel funny, a quick peruse of the dash showed that my fuel indicator was showing empty, which had me slightly annoyed, I had just put 20 bucks into the tank.
Then I had noticed that the whole dash was dead, no tach , temp or any of the other gauges, like the shifter location. At this time the car was still running, but when driving it felt like it was going to stall out and I could only max out at 10 mph until I reached a parking lot. Hazard and signal lights were also non functional, and after the car was shut off, it failed to restart. CAA was called, and truck brought home via tow truck.
None of the dash warning lights were iluminated prior to this, so if one came on, it did so before losing the power to the instrumentation.
Ford forums on the internet do not suggest any type of consensus as to what might be wrong, and losing power to the dash, is not something that I have run across until now.
Does anyone have any insight as to what may have happened.
I pulled off the positive to clean the terminal, while waiting for the tow truck to arrive. The dash lights came back, but the car would attempt to start but no go. The cdrom stereo however was going nuts after I turned off the ignition, you could hear what I assumed to be the carosel cycling. It was daylight, so did not check the headlights yet.
Cant say that I am surprised, but the truck just started up with just a little effort on the engines part. Leaving it parked till tommorow afternoon, so I can start some diagnostics.
Sounds like what my car did when the alternator failed.
Various parts , radio, dash board, etc stop working, first, but then it becomes undriveable… well you turn off the head lights and it runs better, turn the headlights back on… and its sick again… And then it stalls and it can’t be started… weak starter motor . or it just clicks at the starter motor.
Likewise. My 06 Focus had a heck of a time with alternators for a while, and no one was able to identify the cause. Eventually I got rid of it because of that - if it’s your alternator, may it be a single replacement for you.
Always start your diagnosis with a fully charged battery if at all possible. You may have a bad battery terminal that was not allowing the alt to charge it. May be a bad alternator. Either way get your battery charged up and tested first step.
Wow. The alternator on most cars is a relatively simple DIY job, an hour at most in any shop. What’s so incredibly complex about the unit on an '07 Escape?
Of my three newer cars ('03-'07) only one has the alternator a little buried and would be a 2-hour job.
I’d definitely get the battery tested before jumping to the expensive conclusion that it’s the alternator. Do it ASAP too since if it is a bad battery and you drive around with it too long, you may end up getting to do an alternator too!
No to sidetrack things, but unless it’s a super-simple swap out (doesn’t sound like it here!) I probably wouldn’t bring my own alternator. Defective alternators aren’t terribly uncommon (especially rebuilds) and so if you get one you want the mechanic (or his part supplier) paying for the labor to do the reinstall, not you.
By itself, its just like any other alternator. Three bolts and some connectors basically. It just happens to be at the bottom of the engine, and its on top of the control arm. Ford suggests that you pretty much disconnect the whole side of the front end. Otherwise, you have to do, what I am doing and playing the fantastic four elastic guy and snake your hand and tools in through what ever space there is.
If lead acid batteries get discharged too far they tend to self destruct chemically. Don’t be too surprised if you need a new battery in the next week or two.
I use to remove the motor mount and jack the engine up to get access to low hanging accessories.
To address an earlier observation of yours, I’ve had the dash lights go out with a mechanical. It turned out that my accessory plug was on the same fuse as the engine management system. When I overloaded the circuit I killed the engine. This was a 2000 Saturn SL1 if anyone has one.