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I was driving along the highway approaching my turn off, when all of the sudden I lost all electrical power. All the gauges went to zero, all of the lights dimmed to nothing, and the radio went off. The engine was still running but it felt like it was just coasting. As soon as I had slowed becuause of traffic and depressed the clutch, everything cutout. Luckily I was already beside the shoulder and was able to slide over and stop safely. I turned off the ignition and pressed the hazard lights button. The lights just barely came on. I tried to restart but all I got was the clicking noise of a dead battery.
This was the first time in all of my driving experience (34 years) that I have had a breakdown on the highway. I have driven my focus daily on the highway for the last 13 years.
Thanks to my wife's persistance I enrolled in the CAA program a few years ago. I called CAA and they were arrived within 5 minutes! Luckily I was only about 3km from home so he towed me there without a problem.
During the day I did notice that the start cranking was a little sluggish and the power windows were operating at a very slow rate. I was hoping that it would start for the drive home so that I could check it out at home. I had replaced the battery only once at around 5 years, so this battery was on its 8th year (normally you should change your battery every 4 years). Went out and picked up a battery and installed it this morning and now the car is back up and running again. I did the odometer test mode trick to check if the alternator was working up to snuff and it showed that it was within the normal operating voltage. woo hoo!
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good to hear you got home safe and it was a cheap fix.
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Nice that story sounds like what happened to me but I wasn't able to get over onto the shoulder. And pit was Off the highway at the lights. It's amazing how many people will still pull up behind you and honk when your broken down ... Even with your hood up , hazard lights on , big orange triangle that I put out ontop of my car lol. My issue was the battery also , glad to see that it was a quick fix !
2002 SVT Focus
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03-27-2013, 04:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-27-2013, 04:01 PM by ZTWsquared.)
(03-27-2013, 12:26 AM)hardk0re Wrote: good to hear you got home safe and it was a cheap fix.
^^ what he said - and that's a pretty darn good record of reliability.
You should check to make sure your batter warning light is working - you should have had some sort of indication of an electrical system failure before you had a full on breakdown. WIth all the Foci I've had, there have been a number of battery replacements and 1 alternator replacement - and in both instances the batt warning light alerted me long before they became potentially catastrophic
2008 Fusion SEL MTX - DD1 * 2009 Fusion SEL - DD2 * 2007 Focus ZXW - R*I*P * 2004 Focus ZTW CD Silver - sold * 2004 Focus ZTW Black - sold * 2003 Focus ZTW Black - sold * 2001 Focus ZTW Gold - sold * 2000 Focus SE Wagon (ZTW option) - Black - sold * 2000 Focus SE Wagon (ZTW option) - Gold R*I*P
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(03-27-2013, 04:00 PM)ZTWsquared Wrote: You should check to make sure your batter warning light is working - you should have had some sort of indication of an electrical system failure before you had a full on breakdown. WIth all the Foci I've had, there have been a number of battery replacements and 1 alternator replacement - and in both instances the batt warning light alerted me long before they became potentially catastrophic
Actually, while I was cycling through the different test modes on the odometer, there was a test for the guage cluster and it did appear that not all of the warning lights lit up. I must check this again. Thanks for the tip Ken.
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A few years back with a different focus wagon I drove out west and it died in the middle of nowhere, Northern Ontario. I also had CAA and it was late on a Saturday. Got towed to the nearest town (Schreiber, ON...Population 1100 on the north shore of Lake superior 60km east of Thunder Bay) where I had to rent an old dingy motel room to wait until Monday for the Ford dealership to open. The motor was pooched and I had to find a vehicle transporter to get the car home as the motor (a used one..story too long to tell here) had been recently replaced and they were going to replace it again under warranty. It cost $700 to get it home to Ottawa. Excruciatingly long bus ride (24 hrs) home to Ottawa from there. It was definitely an adventure.
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