Loses power while driving

MSRP450

MEMBER
2010 FORD FOCUS
2.0L
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
140,000 MILES

In the morning from a cold start runs fine. Maybe let it sit for a couple of hours. Drive again it will lose power while driving in a couple of miles. Then mystery it will start running again. Never does stop running. Just yesterday tried to start it made a clicking sound like the battery was dead used a jump starter it fired right up. Checked the charge system with my Foxwell scanner every thing checked out. Did a scan for codes none were found. Any ideas?

Mike

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

We could have a couple different issues going on but we need to start going through the basics first and find out if we have any issues to point us in the right direction.

The fact that the battery appeared to be weak we need to start with that because a drained battery will cause all sorts of odd issues.

So let's start with load checking the battery to find out if it is able to carry the load needed.

Here is a guide that will explain how to load check the battery:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/car-battery-load-test

Then the loss of power may be related to this or it could be something different.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/symptoms-of-low-engine-power

I would suggest starting with the battery because if the voltage is off, that can mess with what is called the reference voltage which is a 5 volt signal that is needed to power all the engine sensors.

If this is off then they are not going to tell the PCM the correct info and will cause different issue but not set any codes.

So if the battery tests ok or is replaced and this continues then we can dig into testing the sensors that would be related to this loss of power.

Please run through this and let us know what you find and we can go from there.

Thanks