We also had the problem. We would sit for hours in parking lots. We also thought it was something with the wiring for the battery. It ended up being the rebuilt starter we had installed about 4 months before the problems began. Who knew?
Mulligan55
I had a similar problem many years ago. The cause of my problem was a lose battery post, (the positive one). I also thought it was a bad battery connection but I cleaned that up and the problem only went away for a while. I discovered that any thing I did in that area, (like tapping the connection) would get it to start. I also discovered that I could start the car if I blew the horn while starting it, (drawing a little current reduces resistance at the bad connection which then can handle the current draw of the starter).
I did not replace the battery right away as I was having fun showing people how the car would start only if I blew the horn.
Leo
I wonder if slamming the hood is what’s fixing the problem, in which case the loose connections might be deeper in the car, and unrelated to the battery/cable.
To see if that’s it, next time the car won’t start, wave a magic wand over the battery, close her up, and see if that “solves” it. (The wand of course does nothing… just a flourish for good effect, should anyone be watching)
I have a 1996 Taurus that had the same issue of somethimes not starting—no rhyme
nor reason on when or where. A mechanic looked at it for 3 weeks before he gave
up figuring it out. Another mechanic had it for 3 weeks when he maybe finally figured it out. It was NOT the battery nor the battery connection. (we would jump
start it with one of those battery machines and usually it would work by the time we
got it set up but one day it didn’t…it was the 10 minute wait that usually worked but
of course we didn’t realize that like the guy who kept tightening the positive cable).
The real problem existed in the computer signals that the car was/is sending.
I had a similar problem with my 2003 Saturn. Different maker, but in my case the ignition switch went buggy and was tripping an anti-theft feature that would disable starting the car for 10 minutes. The way to “reset” it was to detach/reattach the positive battery cable and hope that it worked the next time. I got the ignition switch replaced and have never had the problem again. I’m not sure if Ford has something similar, perhaps?
Since a brief look brought the answer, I would guess that he left his lights on and apparently did so occasionally. And so his battery would go dead occasionally.
My restart problem was a bad fuel pump, when cool it would restart, at first it took only about 5 to 10 minutes, than 15 so on. It didn’t do it all the time just when ever. Took a long time to track it down, because normally by time I got cables, called someone and they came out it would restart.
We have a 2003 Olds that has a very similar problem. It is with the security system. It won’t restart/start and it will start after you put the key in the run position and leave it there for 10 min. After that time the security light will stop blinking and you can go ahead and start the car. Too expensive to fix. Best to just plan to leave ten min early every time. Most times you are early to events.