I bought this from an estate (father-in-laws) 2000 4.0 off-road Ranger. the starting problem has happened 3 times. 1st time I left a friends house and put in the key, cranked and ALMOST started then stopped, just cranking. I tried 3-4 times more, then went in the house, came out 15 min later and checked fuses, and battery, all seemed ok, then it started right up. a couple of months later it did it again with the same results.
Last weekend it got to single digit temps and the truck wouldn't start again, but this time it wouldn't start. I tried the other key, with the same results(PATS maybe?) Put the battery charger on and left it overnight, and the truck started right up.
The battery is in the last year of use(60 month runs out this Oct).
so 2 questions here, could the PATS cause this, or could it be and old battery?
The truck only has 67k and he only drove it 4k, but he was getting too old to drive it anyway, so I don't know about the maintenance of it.