Hello again forum, 2005 MCS r53, lately I've had a EML light that comes and goes. No check engine light.

This morning I felt some engine hesitation. Dropped the kiddo off at school. Turned the engine off for a min and it would not start. The starter turns, rough idle, dies, and the speedometer vibrates and makes a vibrating noise.

Once back home, inpa not registering any engine codes, no ews codes, the instrument cluster / gauges do run a test but inpa does throw a few script errors. But I'm not sure if that is something new.

The battery reads 11.65v. Could a bad battery cause this behavior?

Anyone have any guesses, experience something similar?

 

Symptoms indicate most likely a dead battery - they seem to fail quickly without warning nowadays.
Possibly a dead alternator.
But check all the connections & grounds first.

 

yes sir, your right. the battery seems to have been causing the rattling / vibrating / buzzing speedometer. I put in a new battery and no more vibrating speedometer.

It cranks well now with the new battery but no start. tried a few times. Then I noticed that I was not hearing the fuel pump prime when I turned the ignition. Gave the back seat a few smacks. I then could hear the pump moaning, almost sounds like a frog. It started right up. Then died. Its the pump. No fuel. That would also explain the hesitations I was feeling right before all this.

I think its a dead / dying fuel pump. But please stop me if I'm going down the wrong path, forum. Or if you can think of anything that I can try before replacing the pump.

 

Certainly possible, but I'd still check all the grounds first.
Is the car used much?
An awful lot of questions on these forums are about cars that aren't, or just for short trips.

 

Will do, sir. Can't hurt. My thinking is that if it were a ground issue the starter would not turn. Wrong assumption? The starter is quick with the new battery.

The car is a daily driver. It does about 60 - 70 miles a week. Work is about 3 miles one way.

 

No, that's a good assumption! Your wonderfully short commute 'should' be OK, but probably isn't helping.

 

yes sir the commute is on the short side. Not complaining tho.

have a new pump on the way, will update.

thank you for the help and replies

 

Update: installed the new fuel pump today. Running again. so this one has a happy ending.

also brought the old battery to auto zone and had them test it. Bad.

so in short the buzzing speedometer was caused by a weak battery and the hesitation, no start, was the pump.

the pump was easy enough to swap. helped to watch a few videos on YouTube first. And the fun continues

 

Good to hear a successful result - thanks.