Car won't start. Advice?

[notme]

Borrow a battery from the neighbor (or whoever) before opening the wallet....just in case it's the starter motor or solenoid.

There is a problem with the ignition barrel of some Avensis's around 2005 IIRC, but that should result in no noise or clicks at all when you try to start.

[pzkpfw]

OK, I'm a muppet. (You knew that, right?)

Fooled by the sudden transition from Go to No-Go, I definitely had been over-thinking it. (I mean, I kind of knew it was just a poked battery, but was also worried about the immobiliser, the mongoose alarm thing, the odd behaviour of the right rear indicator lately, global warming, all that stuff).

Finally managed to steal the Wife's car and go get a battery (with two cars and one bike in the household, not much urgency really.)

...then had to go swap it for another one (more expensive, with "European" written on it, woo hoo) because the normal one wouldn't fit.

And then it started first turn of the key.


Thanks to everyone who commented. It was all useful.



Now I'm off to the I.T. forum to ask about setting the clock...

[Wannabiker]

Excellent...I was worried that as you hadn't reported back after a couple of weeks, that it was a major, and the car was in a million bits... waiting for some part from overseas, which is on back-order....

[SMOKEU]

Excellent...I was worried that as you hadn't reported back after a couple of weeks, that it was a major, and the car was in a million bits... waiting for some part from overseas, which is on back-order....

Come on, it's not a Nissan.

[pzkpfw]

Come on, it's not a Nissan.

He's not far wrong, really.

It's a Toyota, but English assembled.

Just getting brake pads was a mission; for a start my model is not in most of the parts books.

(The embarassing thing was, after struggling with Repco and Supercheap and everyone I could phone, I got new pads for the back from an actual Toyota dealer - for about the same price as the Repco/Supercheap pads usually are. I still shudder, though, at the $360 EACH price they quoted for new rear drum/rotors. (I say drum/rotor because it's a disk brake, but the disk has an in-built drum for the hand-brake which uses shoes.))