I've got a 93 240 stationwagon. I'd been having a problem where the car would die while running (at any speed) and up until now it always restarted after waiting a few minutes. Someone said it might be the crank positioning sensor.

Unrelated (I think) the battery runs dead if I leave it sitting too long. I've gone into the garage at night and caught it making a strange clicking sound that seems to be coming from the dash. It sounds like it might be the windshield wiper mechanism clicking endlessly. I'm sure this is what runs the battery dead.

I haven't driven the car for a couple weeks. The battery was dead. I recharged the battery and scraped the gunk off the connectors and hooked it up, and now it won't start. It sounds like it does when it dies and won't restart for a few minutes.

When I turn the key now it sounds like it is about to start at any second, but never fires up.

Any advice? Replace the CPS?

 

I'd not replace specific parts without evidence there is something wrong with them.

hard to say whats going on here, but I do believe I'd be trying to track down the source of that parasitic drain. the wipers shouldn't work at all with the key off, there's only a few systems that are powered with key off.

if you have a digital multimeter that has a 10 amp mode (usually you have to move the + lead to a different socket on the meter for this), you can try and test for where that drain is going. first, fully charge the battery, then lift the plus lead off the battery, and with the meter in 10A mode, put one meter lead on the battery + terminal, and the other on the + connector to the rest of the car. ideally this should read 0.00 amps as there should be almost nothing powered other than your clock (no more than a couple milliamps). if you DO read a drain, continue. if not, I'm at a loss.

if yours is a late 93, there's a fuse holder under the hood with 4 fuses in it connected direct to the battery (this wasn't present on earlier cars). remove each of these fuses one at a time and see if you still measure that current drain between the battery + terminal and the positive cable. if the drain goes away with one of these, the pink fuse is the engine (fuel injection, ignition), the yellow fuse is the ignition switch, and always-powered stuff on main fuses 7-10 and the headlight switch parking light circuit and power to the high/low beam step relay, the green fuse is the ABS and the blue fuse is the engine cooling fan.

on either early or late 93's, the main fuse panel on the driver's side kick panel, fuses 7-8-9-10 are also always powered. remove these one at a time, and put your 10A meter between the two terminals of the missing fuse. fuse 7 is brake lights, ABS, and the shift lock solenoid. fuse 8 is a big pile of courtesy kinda stuff and the radio always-on-power. fuse 9 is the emergency blickers. fuse 10 is the power windows.

also, with all the fuses back in place, turn the car off, and put your meter back in DC volts mode, find a good chassis ground you can connect the black lead to, and measure the voltage on each fuse on the main fuse panel. they all should be off except 7-10


also... put everything back to normal, meter in DC Volts mode (NEVER leave a meter in amps mode, if you accidentally put it across a voltage in that mode it looks like a dead short). measure the battery voltage, it should be like 12.6V or something close. now start the car, measure the voltage, it should be like 13.8V or something. if its not at least 1V higher than it was with the engine off, your alternator isn't working. if its not, goose the throttle a bit and see if the voltage goes up to 13.8V or so...