recharged battery after leaving side lights on.doh! when starting you just get a single click (coming from behind dashboard) is this starter motor or ecu problem? before recharging i was getting several clicking noises but battery wasn't charged enough. this all happened after a frozen night. please help. oh and car is 1998 rover 200 1.4i k series petrol.

liza, January 2009

ring/join aa.39 quid for the year.bargain

mutley, January 2009

thanks for replying - im searching endlessly for a solution. tried that last night with brothers car running and still the same. just wondered if it might just be the immobiliser. used key code before and nothing changed. this minute tried again and alarm bleeped once but yet still the same?? would buy new battery for £60 but it might not be. should car still try to start if it is immobiliser?

liza, January 2009

RE charge and clean battery contacts/ earth strap

Rob, January 2009

Sounds to me like the battery is still low on power. Have you checked the voltage across the terminals? A good battery fully charged should be 13volts or better. If you can use jump leads and a friends car (with engine running) you can be sure to have enough power for the starter. If it wont start with that combination then I would suspect the starter motor is faulty. If the battery is more than three years old it will likely struggle with this cold weather.

Richard, January 2009