primalurges

Had same issue here. Battery died within a week of the twitching gauges.

Especial86

iTrader: (1)

Check the connections at the battery for barnacles... If it looks cruddy then a cleaning will probably help.. If its clean then get the battery tested... Make sure its tested twice and freshly charged..(a couple laps on the highway will charge it up)

Gizmokid2005

I'm going to guess that a new battery stopped it from happening too?

Gizmokid2005

I'll be sure to give it a good check this weekend. I'm pretty diligent on that, but could be something with the actual terminal clamps themselves that I'm missing..

4x4angel

go to your local auto zone. they can check it out for you at the parking lot .

BolletuH

I can confirm that a bad battery is the issue of this problem. My old battery was beginning to give me issues, and I saw this problem on a few colder mornings. I replaced it with a red top optima AGM battery, and haven't seen the issue come back at all. It's been around 7 or 8 months since I swapped out the batteries. Like posted before though check, and test all connections before jumping to conclusions.

primalurges

Yes it did. I know it sounds weird battery has enough juice to turn over engine yet not enough of something that results in twitchy gauges. First car I ever owned that does that when the battery is dying then again this is also the first gasoline engine I have that sounds like a diesel. Also check your terminals. My trick as always suffered from that white build up and at around 100k the terminals were very eaten up and has to be replaced.

Gizmokid2005

I used to love autozone for everything, but the one time I relied on them to test my alternator for my Ranger, they said it tested fine when it was in fact bad. I won't trust them for any other electrical tests now...

I've been looking at Optima batteries. I checked my terminals this morning and they're still very clean with no corrosion and they're tight. I wouldn't be surprised if this was still the OEM battery..

Nah, doesn't really sound too odd, not with the stuff I've dealt with already. The symptom itself is a bit odd, but the fact that it still turns over, etc doesn't surprise me.

GreatWh1te

I don't think its the alternator, when my went the gauges never pegged, however when the battery went bad I had fast/slow idles and weird AC and radio issues.

chuckster48

Twitching gauges on a Ford are a sure sign the battery is going to fail. The last time this happened, the gauges twitched once, and I knew I had to buy a battery. I stopped for something, and that was it. It wouldn't start, no interior lights, no radio, no nothing. It failed that quick. You are lucky that it is giving you that much notice. When they fail like that, you can't even jump them off.