“Starting System Fault” – that was what flashed across my dashboard this morning.

It wasn’t difficult for us to understand that there was a problem in the starting system of my F250. We turned the key and the engine didn’t turn over.

We left the truck parked for a couple hours, and then it started beautifully without any intervention.

This happened once before to my truck. A similar thing has happened to one of our other work trucks multiple times. So far not to strange.

What makes it a head scratcher is that there events have been exclusively at one dairy. How does that happen?

Could it be because we often park on a slight hillside angled toward the passenger side?

Could it be because this herd is on a Monday-morning schedule and the trucks have sat idle for the weekend?

Could the herdsman (who is our driver while there) be starting the truck is such a way as to throw it off?

We may never know the answer, because the problem occurs so rarely and it is difficult to isolate and test variables when you have an interlude between problems of a couple months, but it’s a fun guessing game.

It reminds me of seizure investigation in neurology, or syncopal symptoms in cardiology.