The other week I was having problems with my car not starting. The symptoms were that you would turn the ignotion key and nothing happened. No dash lights nothing. Then the dash clock would fade out and reset itself to 00:00.

However if I kept trying the car would suddenly come into life and start fine. The battery appeared to be fine. Then last week the same thing happened and it didnt go away the car was dead. I called out the RAC (roadside repair/ recovery people in the UK) and they traced it to a bad +ve terminal on the battery. It was dropping 1 to 1.5 v accross the battery terminal/main power connector. This was just enough to stop the immobilizer from from disarming, preventing the car from staring and shutting down all the other electrics. So if anyone else has similar problems I recommend checking the voltage drop between the battery and the main power feed to the car. If it's above 1V then either you have a bad bettery terminal or it just needs cleaning!

Cheers

Mark