surely if it turns over the battery and connections must be ok?!
A car supply is not like the mains at home, you don’t have an almost limitless supply available, (one reason why electricians make crap auto electricians.)
The battery supply has to be capable of dumping huge amounts of current (amps) into the starter motor and keep a constant supply (volts) for the more subtle components like ECU,s which control the start sequence.
ECU,s are voltage sensitive and this is one of the main reasons some Clio’s suffer from poor starting in the cold weather.
The fact the starter motor is turning means nothing, if the plugs aren’t firing or the immobiliser wont switch off. (or in this case, the diesel injection ECU isn’t working properly)
If you have a voltmeter, try this. Connect it to your cigar lighter and turn on the 1st ignition position (Aux). With a good well-charged battery you should get a reading of about 13.8 volts (v1)
Now turn on the ignition see how much it drops. (v2)
Now crank the engine and check the voltage. (v3)
Finally, when the engine fires up and the alternator gets going check the voltage again. (v4)
What you have learnt from this, is the range of voltage conditions under which your delicate electronic components need to work. V3 -V4 being the extremes.
So if you have dragged the supply down even further, by caning the arse off the battery with some big stereo system or heavy use of lights, heated screens/seats etc.. The battery is on a hiding to nothing to keep up.
Add some dodgy connections or battery terminal corrosion and you have the answer.
The clue was in the first post on this….
it turns over but the actual engine wont start. when i try to start it the battery light flashes rapidly, sometimes the 'heartbeat monitor' light with the 'coil looking thing' comes on and sometimes the fuel light comes on
