Very thirsty 01 Focus 1.4

tomma

01 Focus 1.4. Very poor pickup in 4th & 5th gears. Last week took €17 of petrol to go 80 miles (130km) at up to 90kmph. Recently serviced and in PMO otherwise.
4 new proper Ford plugs fitted 2 months ago... no improvement.
Engine not missing or pinking... just thirsty & no power (even for a 1.4).

Appreciate any input. Tks.

TheUsual

Smaller engines get a hard life sometimes.
Try changing gear earlier and don't rev the engine so much.
Also I would change the air filter (in case they didn't change it during the service).
When you are at a constant speed make sure your foot is not on the accelerator hard all the time, the engine is burning fuel but not accelerating.

And don't be aggressive in traffic, you may not even think you are being aggressive when everyone else around is driving hard. It's tough to go against the flow.

Tomas_S

lambda sensor?

Brian?

A dodgy coil? Uneducated guess.

EPM

Despite being underpowered the 1.4 should be doing a lot better than that. The gearing is quite long when on a cruise for the power available. Could be an oxygen sensor

itarumaa

How do you calculate mpg from those figures informed?

There are many reasons why fluel consumption could be bad,

-coil
-brakes are stuck
-handbrake is stuck
-no air in the tyres

When I had a coil problem with my Volvo S40, mpg was about 10, normally 30.

But the car had no power either, so it was easy to notice.

Dr_Colossus

itarumaa wrote: »

How do you calculate mpg from those figures informed?

There are many reasons why fluel consumption could be bad,

-coil
-brakes are stuck
-handbrake is stuck
-no air in the tyres

When I had a coil problem with my Volvo S40, mpg was about 10, normally 30.

But the car had no power either, so it was easy to notice.

itarumaa, was it just one coil pack that was failing for you or did you have to replace more? What kind of price did they cost you?

tomma

Tks for input...

Recently had clutch & release bearing replaced,air (& pollen) filter, handbrake / rear brakes checked, new front disks & pads.

€17 will get approx 13.5 litres (2.95 gallons),so 3 Gallons/80 miles = 26mpg Poor by any standards. This 80 miles was 75mls motorway driving 100 kmph & 5 miles urban.

Coil behaving fine otherwise i.e. no pinking on pickup and HT leads ok...running equally on all 4 cylinders when I pull 1 plug at a time.

Will google lambda & oxygen sensor.

mullingar

The official figures for the 1.4focus is 32mpg urban,52 extra urban, 42 combined.

This figures are in "ideal conditions", so if I was driving it like a granny under those conditions I would expect about 35-37mpg average.

It does seem to be a little low, but a lot of non-engine related stuff can kill your mpg right down to 25mpg. (tyre pressures/weight/traffic etc).

Empty your boot, set the tyre pressures,fill the tank up to the brim, go for a Motorway 40mile drive at EXACTLY 60mph.(20 miles each way). Fill it up to the brim again. This should cost you around €6. If its €8 or more we have a problem Heuston.

(Its cheaper than getting a mechanic to look at it if there is no problem )

itarumaa

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

itarumaa, was it just one coil pack that was failing for you or did you have to replace more? What kind of price did they cost you?

I changed the coil to cylinders 2-3, there is also another one for cylinders 1-4 , but I did not change that one.

The cost was 61 euro from MicksGarage.ie and I changed it myself.

MajorMax

My 04 Ford focus had a cracked cylinder, fuel consumption was terrible and 4th & 5th gear were quite bad. I was told in April that I would need a replacement cylinder for 650 Euro. I didn't have the money and I left it until July. The engine died in July and I had to pay 1711 to get a new one. If I could have afforded it I would have bought a new car

dumb_parade

I'd definetly get the lambda sensor/s checked. I've had two go on my car, and each time it had the same symtoms. Poor mpg, and very slugish performance.

itarumaa

I think tomma that you should fill up the whole tank, drive it empty and fill again, then you should get a figure what the mpg is.

But accordingly the figures you informed, they are quite high, for same kind of driving with my 2.0l petrol Volvo I think would get about 31-32mpg.

Also I think if the coil would be damaged, you would notice this, I had serious problem even to get over hills when car was running badly.

_Conrad_

just found this, kind of cool. put one of my own cars details into it and got 47.1 which feel right as it only sips away at the diesel despite being old and having 200k miles.


"MPG calculator"

http://www.torquecars.com/tools/uk-mpg-calculator.php


So do what itarumaa says, see how many miles it does on a full tank, driving as you normally do, find out how much the tank takes and enter the figures in there, then compare with the ford figure and see how much it's off by, if it's off by loads then you kno there's something up

tomma

Mechanic who did clutch & service recently (knowledgeable mechanic with years of experience), said he found car very underpowered compared to other focus' he had worked on... although he has come across similar 1.4's which were more responsive and others underpowered like this one.

He connected it to diags computer and all was clear... no errors. He mentioned that lambda and coil were checking out fine!!! no errors or warning lights reported.

Mullingar mentioned "The official figures for the 1.4focus is 32mpg urban,52 extra urban, 42 combined" ...

.... looks like this focus was never that green!... You would expect that if it was thirstier,then it should be perkier.... not the case.

I'll do the fill up and drive test

Good mpg calculator link. Tks.

Waterford26

Lambda or MAF sensor.

mullingar

Dont trust the diagnostic tools for everything!

The lambda sensor or MAF could be sending the wrong reading to the ECU, and the ECU accepts it as working!

The lamda sensor has 4 wires: 2 for a heating element (usually the same colour), 1 wire for a +12V power and a signal out wire.

Test procedure:
1. Measure the resistance of the heating element wire, should be <10 ohms
2. Figure out which is the +12V signal, only "live" when ignition is "on". Ignore this cable.
3. The last wire is the output signal. < measure this

When the signal <0.2V, the ECU thinks its a weak (lean) mixture and richens the fuel mixture.
When the signal >0.8V, the ECU thinks its a strong (rich) mixture and leans the fuel mixture

Test it by running the engine until is nice and hot, rev the engine to around 3000rpm and back to tick-over. The signal should change from <0.2V to >0.8V and back to <0.2V

If your lambda sensor only gives a constant <0.2V output when revving the engine, its dead!