Hey everyone! I was really trying to avoid having to post here for something that is most likely very simple, but I've yet to find a solution/answer, so here is my problem:

I have an 04 oz rally (auto unfortunately) and its been my daily driver for close to 3 years now. I've taken great care of it, but the mileage is getting high now. Anyway, I started having this problem a few months ago where when I try to start my car, it acts like it wants to start for a second, and then immediately seems like all the power was lost. Almost as if my battery had just a very slight charge, just enough to turn the interior lights on. I can usually remove the positive terminal, wait a few minutes, reconnect it, and get the car to start. However, on occasion, and definitely more often than not now, when this happens, I hear a weird and very rapid ticking from somewhere around the front ECU. Sometimes I can only get it to start if I remove the positive terminal connection AND the ECU for a few minutes.

Yes, I do keep getting a CEL for a p4001 (02 sensor/catalytic converter) and if I understand correctly, this can cause misfire and power loss (which I definitely notice while driving now) and unfortunately I've yet to fix this issue. Could this really be the culprit of the power on start up issue too? Has anyone else experienced anything similar to this? Any help is going to be greatly appreciated!

Thanks everyone!

 

are your battery terminals dirty or corroded to the point where it might affect clean contact with the battery? Might be that

 

Unfortunately, no. I mean I've kept them clean, just re-cleaned them, but actually now that you mention it, there was a weird period there for about a week where the negative terminal would just get completely corroded almost daily. I'd clean it all off really well with terminal cleaning solution, and the next day it'd be terrible again.

 

Clean up all your grounds and it may not hurt to change your battery leads. If your still having the issue I would pull the starter and take it in for testing.