02 Focus Engine Warning Light

DMBandit

Hi all. This may have been touched on before but just looking for a few opinions. Here's the deal:

Started the car (02 Ford Focus) the last day after spending a night overnight in Shannon carpark and the engine warning light came on. Then everytime I accelerated more than a little it came on again so it was basically flickering. this happened all the way to Ennis until eventually the light went off for good. Now everytime I start the car the warning light comes on again for about 10 seconds, it seems to be until the engine heats up or something, but it always goes off for good then. Occasionally it will come on when i'm stopped at lights or a roundabout but will go off immediately once I get going again.

Just wondering if anybody might have seen this before, I know there are a few diagnostics guys around here so hopefully one of you might have an idea?

I'm around the Galway area but I'd rather not bring it to the Ford garage unless I absolutely have to. Does anyone know how much a diagnostic is there?

Thanks in advance lads.

CrowdedHouse

DMBandit wrote:

H

I'm around the Galway area but I'd rather not bring it to the Ford garage unless I absolutely have to. Does anyone know how much a diagnostic is there?

Thanks in advance lads.

€90 :eek:

mike65

Sounds like a dodgy sensor but which one?!

Mike.

Captain Slow IRL

Is it idling smoothly?
They give woeful trouble with coil packs - but the engine management light tends to stay on and not go out.
If you open the bonnet, on the passenger side of the engine, you will see the 4 ignition leads going into the coil pack - pull these off and have a look at the contacts on the coil. They should be shiny but a dull one indicates if the coil pack is on the way out.
As far as I know, a diagnostic check should only cost €40-50 - give motorpark a ring and ask them for a price to get the fault codes read off and reset the light.

DMBandit

Cheers for the replies lads.

Yeah there actually doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the actual driving of the car. Thing is i'm a bit stuck for cash at the moment so just wanna make sure i'm not doing anything to harm the car by not gettin it checked out straight away.

maidhc

CrowdedHouse wrote:

€90 :eek:

Cost me €85 to get the ECU updated to the latest map, and that took the most of an hour.

Reading the ECU for faults should be close on free.

Mr.Diagnostic

maidhc wrote:

Reading the ECU for faults should be close on free.

Go on, I have to ask. Why should it be close on free?

Mr.Diagnostic

DMBandit wrote:

Cheers for the replies lads.

Yeah there actually doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the actual driving of the car. Thing is i'm a bit stuck for cash at the moment so just wanna make sure i'm not doing anything to harm the car by not gettin it checked out straight away.

I would suggest it could be a false economy to not get it checked. Modern systems are very good at adapting for faults and can often drive well when there is a fault. Among many other things you could, for example, damage your Cat and so cost yourself more in the long run.

maidhc

Mr.Diagnostic wrote:

Go on, I have to ask. Why should it be close on free?

Because it shouldn't take a main dealer longer than a few minutes to hook it onto their WDS system and print out the fault codes?

If it cost me an hours labour to get the ECU updated, it should cost much less to merely read fault codes.

Mr.Diagnostic

maidhc wrote:

Because it shouldn't take a main dealer longer than a few minutes to hook it onto their WDS system and print out the fault codes?

If it cost me an hours labour to get the ECU updated, it should cost much less to merely read fault codes.

The costs involved in "merely" reading codes are quite considerable for any garage. Equipment has to be bought and upgraged (dealer tool is no longer WDS, it's now IDS). Software has to be updated and paid for. The Tech has to be paid wages, his training paid for along with all the other overheads and after all that a profit has to be turned too.

maidhc

Mr.Diagnostic wrote:

The costs involved in "merely" reading codes are quite considerable for any garage. Equipment has to be bought and upgraged (dealer tool is no longer WDS, it's now IDS). Software has to be updated and paid for. The Tech has to be paid wages, his training paid for along with all the other overheads and after all that a profit has to be turned too.

Indeed, but there is a limit to how much you can charge for 10 mins work. Even a lawyer knows that.

My point it that I was charged a reasonable €85 to have the EU updated to the latest CD (ford made a number of improvements to the 1.8 TDCi map last summer). This required more time and skill than getting faults read. Therefore the fault reading should be much cheaper than €85.... maybe €20.

kylemore

Started car this morning. Everything ok except speedo, fuel guage and temp guage they didn't come on. All the fuses seem to be ok. Lights, indicators, clock working ok. Car going ok. Any ideas out there. 03 focus
Kylemore

Rudolph Claus

Hiya, you should register at http://www.ffoc.co.uk
Its a good forum specific for focus owners and theres a couple of ford mechanics and some very knowledgeable folk on them that can help you.

Captain Slow IRL

kylemore wrote:

Started car this morning. Everything ok except speedo, fuel guage and temp guage they didn't come on. All the fuses seem to be ok. Lights, indicators, clock working ok. Car going ok. Any ideas out there. 03 focus
Kylemore

you need a new instrument cluster

bring it to your ford dealer, they should confirm (common complaint with focus)

cyrusdvirus

i have that light on in my mondeo too. Started off with the coil pack last december, then Cat in January, then got the engine warning light, the garage guy (ford dealer, 03 car has 70K + on it so want to keep what little resale value by having Ford stamped FSH) says it was to do with that going, not really an issue, more of an emissions problem, and not causing problems for engine, but to get replaced will cost @€;250

DMBandit

I got a full service done last week by the local ford dealer and they did a diagnostic. they didnt get any error codes after the diagnostic so said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. your man took it out for a test drive and of course the light didnt appear while he was driving it. they obviously reset the light as it hasnt come on again since, but it's still a little worrying. why would it have been flashing intermittently for no reason? I'm worried now that something is wrong with it (like that cat) and dont know if i can just forget about it!

cyrusdvirus

DMBandit wrote:

I got a full service done last week by the local ford dealer and they did a diagnostic. they didnt get any error codes after the diagnostic so said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. your man took it out for a test drive and of course the light didnt appear while he was driving it. they obviously reset the light as it hasnt come on again since, but it's still a little worrying. why would it have been flashing intermittently for no reason? I'm worried now that something is wrong with it (like that cat) and dont know if i can just forget about it!

I had a similar experience in the mondeo. the car was misfiring, and i told them that my previous car (fiesta) had the same problem, turned out to be coil pack. When i told the garage that they said oh no, that would've been picked up............2 days later i'm ringing AA to come rescue me ...

Make sure you document conversations with them, cos i was able to get some joy from the garage due to the fact i had names and times of calls. they only charged me for the part, and fitted it FOC.

Waterford26

Hi lads. Have same problem with my 03 mondeo 1,8duratec(petrol). Engine warning light started flashing when i tried to push the pedal on the metal.. around 160-165km/h..but engine had same power as usual-no changes. But I slowed down and flashing stopped. In Mondeo manual is: "when engine warning light goes on and flashing slow down vehicle. Flashing should stop. If not, you need to bring your car to nearest ford dealer immediately"
So this didnt help me much to find out why that freakin light started flashing.
Engine is after full rebuild cos she was eating too much oil(now its alrite), new iridium spark plugs, head gasked, skimmed head, new ignition leads, new piston rings, all new gaskets around etc.
But I had this problem(twice) before the engine was fixed too. One thing which was'nt replaced is coil pack.. Any ideas?