My Mom's 2000 F150 (5.4L, 2WD) is completely dead, as the title says. She got in it this morning and all the lights and radio came on like normal, but after a couple seconds they just shut off. Now I can't get anything at all to come on.

I put a multimeter on the battery (only a year or two old) and it read something like 12.86v which seems normal. Then I checked all the fuses and none of them were obviously blown. I don't know how to test relays or any of that other stuff.

Anybody have and ideas or suggestions on what to check? It ran fine last night.

 

Well, after disconnecting the battery for a little bit it started right up. I'm glad it's running again, but I'm still kind of curious as to what could have caused it to stop in the first place.

 

Sounds like a battery cable connection problem. May have been loose and you tightned it up when you put it back on

 

The cables were definitely tight to begin with. I guess something just needed to be reset.

 

There is nothing in the truck to be 'reset".

You had an intermittent (bad) battery feed problem. Perhaps your reconnecting of the cables "cleaned" the bad connection and restored it.

Don't be surprised if the problem comes back.

Steve

 

Don't forget that there are two ends to every cable. All you need is a loose or corroded connection at the other end of the ground cable and you'll have a "completely dead" vehicle.

I'd trace that cable if I were you. Disconnect it, clean the connection and reinstall it.

My guess is you "pulled" on it enough to break through the corrosion at the other end when you disconnected the battery. So, now everything seems fine. But the problem will come back.

The reason I'm suggesting the ground cable is because it is a "single" cable and it usually attaches to the engine block or frame down low where road spray constantly hits it. The positive cable usually "splits" off into several feeds and it is unlikely that all connections would be bad.

- Jack