When your car fails to start

People check out a car after failing to start. PHOTO BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA

What you need to know:

  • According to City Collision, a website about cars under normal circumstances, when you turn on your car, you should hear the engine crank. “However, if your starter is broken, you may instead hear a clicking noise when you try to start the vehicle.
  • The clicking noise is due to the rapid engaging and disengaging of the solenoid in the starter,” the website partly reads.

You were promised a job at a certain company. In the morning of the interviews you enter your car and it fails to start and you do not seem to know the cause. There are many causes including; worn out glow and spark plugs as Moses Musinguzi, a mechanic at CKK Garage, Makerere, explains.
Driving on low fuel
Driving a car without enough fuel, usually depends on the driver’s financial ability to maintain a safe level of fuel in their car, may also result in your car not starting.
“The fuel pump of both petrol and engine cars pick from the fuel tank. When your car is parked on an uphill or a slope, the pump will not pick any fuel.
Instead, it will be picking vacuum because the fuel might be kept on one side beyond the pump pick up and will fail to start,” Musinguzi says.

Low battery
Sometime last year, Johnson Mugumya parked his car in Bweyogerere and he left to attend a meeting. Unfortunately, he says he was in a rush and forgot to turn off his fog lights during a heavy rain.
“When I returned from a whole days meeting, I attempted to start it but it failed. I checked the battery but it was still intact. On closer observation, I realised my fog lights were on and they had consumed the power on the battery,” Mugumya says, adding that it is until he got another charged battery to jump-start his car that his car eventually started. Musinguzi says other common things that deplete the car battery include playing music when the car is parked, old battery and loose battery terminals.

Blown fuse
Most cars on the Ugandan market, Eric Muwonge, a mechanic at Old Kampala reasons, have their fuses connected to the starting system of the car.
“If at any one point your car fails to start, the first thing to look at is the fuse. Check if it is intact. If it is black in colour, then it means you have to replace it for your car to start,” Muwonge says.

Broken or defective starter
According to City Collision, a website about cars under normal circumstances, when you turn on your car, you should hear the engine crank. “However, if your starter is broken, you may instead hear a clicking noise when you try to start the vehicle.
The clicking noise is due to the rapid engaging and disengaging of the solenoid in the starter,” the website partly reads.

FACT BOX
An automotive battery is a rechargeable battery that supplies electric energy to an automobile. Traditionally, this is called an SLI, for starting, lighting, ignition, and its main purpose is to start the engine. Once the engine is running, power for the car is supplied by the alternator.