This is a pretty common fault on modern cars and it will usually lead a mechanic to one line of enquiry. And that is a check of the fuel pump.

Electric fuel pumps have a finite lifespan and when their time is up, they just stop. So the next time you try to start the car, it will turn over normally, but there’s just no fuel getting to the engine.

So try this: turn the ignition key until you get dashboard lights and then listen carefully. You should be able to hear a faint buzz or thrum that is the sound of the fuel pump whirring away. If you can’t hear it, that’s a strong suggestion that it has died. The other thing to try – if you’re a bit more mechanically minded – is to disconnect the engine’s intake trunking and spray some starter fluid down the engine’s throat. If it fires and then dies straight away (once the starter fluid has been consumed) you’re definitely looking like a new fuel pump is in your future.

This problem could also be about a hundred other things, of course, but eventual fuel pump failures on cars like yours are about as certain as death and taxes.

This era of Australin Fords had a bit of a habit of having their body computers go on the blink. When that happened, a whole bunch of things could start acting up, but the central locking was a prime suspect.

When a car thinks it has a door, bonnet or bootlid opened, it will often refuse to lock, preferring instead to warn the driver that the car is not secure. And when the body computer is confused, it can interpret a closed door as an open one. But before you take it to an auto electrician to be sorted, try this: Take a can of lubricating spray and apply some to the little door sensor inside the door jamb. This is the micro switch that tells the computer what’s going on, and if the switch is full of dust or jammed, that won’t happen. Sometimes freeing the switch will make the problem go away.

The other thing to try is to disconnect the car’s battery and leave it overnight before reconnecting it. Sometimes this will actually reset the body computer. It doesn’t work every time, but sometimes it will do the trick.

The Territory has a yellow check-engine light just on the outside of the tachometer’s face, around the 2000rpm mark. Perhaps that’s what you saw flickering on. This is probably nothing to worry about as the light immediately switched itself off, suggesting that whatever the problem was, it was a fleeting one.

This light is linked to the car’s onboard diagnostic system which monitors the entire car for faults and then logs them for future problem-shooting. If a problem occurs twice within a certain time-frame, then the check-engine light must illuminate to warn the driver to have the car checked and the problem fixed.

If the light reappears and stay lit up, then you need to act to have the problem found and fixed before it has the chance to do any permanent damage to the car’s driveline. As a side-note, a car with an illuminated check-engine light is technically unroadworthy.