Hi- I have a 2007 Ford Escape. About 4 months ago I installed a brand new battery (did it myself) and it was working fine for a few months. Recently I have been experiencing some electrical issues. Sometimes I will turn on my car and the clock will be reset to 12:00 or it will be set to some other random time. The radio will also set to some AM station that it was definitely not on before. Sometimes I will try to turn the car on and the speedometer needle (and the other needles up there in that "dashboard" area with the other information) will all be vibrating and the car won't start right away. Yesterday and today the car wouldnt start at all, and made no sounds or anything until I opened the door and then it started. How do I go about diagnosing this issue?? I am sure it is electrical and I do not think it is a bad battery since the brand new one was working fine for about 3 months. Thanks!!!

 

a intermittent battery connection...check battery cable connections. Confirm there is no "movement" in either + or - posts.

IDK where you live but batteries and very cold (below freezing) temps are tough on batteries. It is possible one of the cells in your 4mo old battery is dying/dead.

electrical can be tough to find...confirm all your primary grounds are good

 

How about if you try this?
The cable from the negative (-) battery terminal , it should go to a connection on the metal of the vehicle. We know you made sure the connections at the terminals on the battery are clean and tight , right?
Well that darn negative cable that connects to the metal of the vehicle has a habit of getting a little corrosion under it and it may look OK, but still not allow full power to the rest of the vehicle. All that is required is to remove the bolt that secures it to the metal , scrape , clean where it contacts the metal and put the bolt back in. Doing this will erase some memory in the vehicle computer like radio stations, memory mirrors, seats and some of the control that the engine computer has learned, but will relearn as you drive the vehicle again. It does sound like as the gentleman posted earlier, a poor, loose cable connection. With all the functions that you had turned on and the opening of the door may have put just enough demand on the connection that it maybe heated enough to expand and make a good enough connection to permit the vehicle to start. Talk about long winded !!!
There could also be a poor connection with the positive cable from the battery to the solenoid relay, but the ground (negative) cable is safer to start checking first , OK?

 

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