Got a phone call tonight at 10:30 from the missus - stuck on the forecourt of Sainsbury's garage with her Disco refusing to start. So off I went with a few basic tools and a torch. She had been working about three miles from the garage, and the car had been standing from about 4pm. It's very cold here tonight. Thick frost. Probably the coldest night so far. It had started fine when she came out of work. On the way home, the diesel light came on, so she went into the garage to get some. When she tried to restart, she said that it didn't sound very lively, and didn't want to catch. When I got there, the battery sounded pretty poorly. Rather than a nice "chugga-chugga-chugga - vroom", all I got was "Ga-wumm - pause - Ga-wumm - pause - ". I did the headlight test, and they dropped to almost nothing when cranking, so it seemed it was low battery rather than any issue with the starter motor or its connections. I'd got jump leads, but the garage guy wouldn't let us try to jump it in front of a pump, so we had to push it to the air bay. Ever tried pushing a Disco slightly uphill ...
Anyways, I jumped it from my car, and it turned over ok. Must say, it churned for a few seconds, but when it did fire, it caught and ran ok. Can a diesel 'flood' as a result of not turning over fast enough to start ? Is that why it was reluctant to fire initially when it was being jumped ? Once running, it drove back home ok, and felt normal.
So, what was going on here ? Tonight is the sort of weather when I would expect a battery to start dying if it was ready to, but surely, wouldn't it have been more likely to show a problem after it had been standing for six hours, rather than with the engine warm, and having run for a few miles already ? Or maybe, it gave its last gasp starting from cold, and three miles wasn't enough for the alternator to get enough back in there to overcome its failing capacity to hold charge ? I seem to recall when I had my old Fester a few years back, I had a similar thing happen. The battery hadn't shown the slightest signs of being weak or marginal in the weeks prior. It started fine one evening. I drove to the village chip shop, and when I came out, the battery just died. I remember someone saying - maybe even on here - that modern batteries often fail this way. So what's the concensus - are we looking at a bad battery ?
Arfa