Mysterious No Start - Magically Starts Issue

[Big Blue]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's way too many damn electronics shoved into the vehicle.

I myself have seen this issue before when I was working at a Ford dealer. Only happened on one Ranger. Surprisely enough it wasn't mine. Why did it happen? I have no clue. What I do know is I feel it's a collaboration of all the extra electronics shoved into the newer vehicles when manufacturers were all of a sudden wanting to get extremely innovative. When you look at all manufacturers together, you will notice they all have a bunch of problems in the same time frame starting from 2019 to now.

I tend to agree with the too many electronics in modern vehicles. Back when vehicles were a mode of transportation to get from point A to point B. And, the only electronics were an ECU to control the ignition and fuel injection, great innovations by the way. Things were much simpler. Now with the vehicles becoming lifestyle status symbols and the constant consumer demand for more and more convenience features.

The vehicles have gone from having not one or two processing units to a network on multiple units that all need to communicate with with each other over multiple busses. It takes a computer network specialist to even understand it. You think a technician in the dealers shop can even know where to start, unless the system can give him a code to tell him where to look.

Any slight hiccup in the start up sequence will lock up the whole sequence and require time for things to time out and reset. Hence the need to shut it down and walk away for 15 minutes or so, come back and try again.

It's the price we pay for all the fancy features we all love and must have.

Sponsored

 

[dtech]

Reportedly 40% of an autos cost is now from the electronics. Wife has a new Subaru Outback XT with an equivalent even slightly more electrical stuff than my Lariat and found it interesting to see it has a much smaller battery in size as are the cables coming off of it. Like most newer autos it also uses a smart alternator but I suspect the parasitic draw is less than that of the Ranger as it doesn't make stupid noises and light up while sitting in the garage.

 

[Frenchy]

Reportedly 40% of an autos cost is now from the electronics. Wife has a new Subaru Outback XT with an equivalent even slightly more electrical stuff than my Lariat and found it interesting to see it has a much smaller battery in size as are the cables coming off of it. Like most newer autos it also uses a smart alternator but I suspect the parasitic draw is less than that of the Ranger as it doesn't make stupid noises and light up while sitting in the garage.

But it also has a smaller more efficient engine to crank over as well. That is something you will notice with the Imports. Even my 2012 Frontier with its 4.0 V6 only calls for a Group 35 Battery. The Ranger has a much bigger battery for the 2.3 Ecoboost.

 

[dtech]

But it also has a smaller more efficient engine to crank over as well. That is something you will notice with the Imports. Even my 2012 Frontier with its 4.0 V6 only calls for a Group 35 Battery. The Ranger has a much bigger battery for the 2.3 Ecoboost.

The Subie has a 2.4 liter turbo engine , it does use 0w-20 oil , the Rangers battery cables look almost 2x the size , I'll have to see what the alternator is rated at as the Subaru has heated seats both front and rear along with a heated steering wheel along with the heated mirrors and so on, so I would expect the current draw could be similar or even more than that of the Ranger.

 

[jomacmusic]

Great post, thank you. While I have no current issues with my ‘25 Ranger Lariat with 10k miles, this is great information. I’ve worked in commercial aviation for 44+ years and it’s fascinating to see technology evolve from aerospace to automotive. Maybe fiber optics and ARINC data busses with be next.

Sponsored