fatal problem with focus

irishh_bob

ok , il explain this as best i can , i own a 1 . 6 ( 108 bhp ) diesel ford focus zetec , thier is around 60 k miles on the clock , around a year ago , the car started showing some problems , while going along a mortorway at a speed of about 70 miles per hour , all of a sudden , a message would come on screen an the engine red light would come on , the message read , engine default , on top of that , acceleration was completley gone , you were litterally free wheeling on the highway , the only solution then was to pull in ( if possible ) on the hard shoulder , turn off the ignition and restart the car , thing was , everytime you restarted the car , the problem disapeared , this only happened on an infrequent basis so was tollerable for the most part , i brought it to the garrage though after a few weeks and all they could come up with was some lame excuse about the air filter being dirty and this effecting the turbo , since around april however , the problem is occuring all the time , its impossible to increase rev without the engine defaulting , the other day i brought it to a mechanic who has a particulary good reputation , he rang me yesterday and told me that if it was him , he would scrap the car , that the ford focus 1 . 6 diesel has a bad engine , its a peugeot engine btw , that even a large lump of money was spent in trying to repair the problem , thier waa still the potential for further complications down the line , he even told me that the local ford dealers have a pretty dim view of the 1. 6 diesel focus , not sure what to do now , im giving serious thought to leaving ford altogether , the KIA ceed looks like an interesting bus but then again , who other than ford would want to take a dud car off my hands ?

colm_mcm

there is a common problem on these where the glow plug relay stays on and the car goews into limp mode. the plugs fuse into the block which apparently is a pain.

Darragh29 on here would be the man to talk to I'd say.

Plug

Sounds like the mechanic dosen't really know what he's on about. I wouldn't think this has got anything to do with the engine as such. Its an electronic problem by the sounds of things. It might be as simple as a sensor. I'd say your best bet is to bring it to a ford specialist or a Ford dealer who can read the fault codes using the proper equipment. Fords can be a pain to read fault codes unless its the right diagnostics etc.

Im not a fan of diesels but as far as these 1.6 engine go they are pretty good. The only ones I've seen giving trouble are ones that have not being looked after. They will give turbo trouble if they are not serviced correctly and on schedule. Is your car down on power or anything?

colm_mcm

Ring Blackchurch Autos on 014019798 and describe the symptoms. They know Fords better than the dealers do.

Row

It sounds to me like there is a problem with the dpf.
(diesel particle/particulate filter)
As said above get a ford specialist to have a look at it...:)

Plug

^^^^^
And if one man on planet earth knows them engines inside out its Row!

irishh_bob

Plug wrote: »

Sounds like the mechanic dosen't really know what he's on about. I wouldn't think this has got anything to do with the engine as such. Its an electronic problem by the sounds of things. It might be as simple as a sensor. I'd say your best bet is to bring it to a ford specialist or a Ford dealer who can read the fault codes using the proper equipment. Fords can be a pain to read fault codes unless its the right diagnostics etc.

Im not a fan of diesels but as far as these 1.6 engine go they are pretty good. The only ones I've seen giving trouble are ones that have not being looked after. They will give turbo trouble if they are not serviced correctly and on schedule. Is your car down on power or anything?

i brought it to the ford dealer a year ago , all they could come up with was that the air filter was dirty and the mechanic i brought it to this week , did do a diagnostic check , of course the problem is electrical but then again , electrics matter when it comes to engines nowadays , all tied in , il check out blackchurch autos , cheers

Row

Plug wrote: »

^^^^^
And if one man on planet earth knows them engines inside out its Row!

I would'nt say that....:)
The reason why i researched dpf's so much was when i was told by a peugeot garage about 3 years ago that i needed a new dpf
@ €850....:eek:....35k mls later i'm still on my original dpf...:cool:

bladespin

shawnee wrote: »

Had an almost identical problem with an 04 Mondeo tdci. Very difficult to get answers as to what is wrong. Had a guy put a computer on it and came up with nothing. He suggested that it may be a problem with the quality of the diesel and that diesel quality is particularly suspect at these recessionary times ! He suggested changing the fuel filter and only using to brand diesel. Did this for a few weeks but problem continued !

Bet that's the fuel system, either the pump's had it or the injectors are leaking, common on the Mondys.

shamwari

If the engine management light is on along with the "Engine Sytems Fault", you will be able to pull some fault codes with a generic scan tool, otherwise it be will needing something like IDS to read it properly.

I've come across two of those engine systems failures in the last month. One was an airflow problems (oil covered MAF) and the other was a dickey injector. Those things will go into limp mode on detection of the smallest anomaly. Generic scan tool was useless in both cases (Autoboss did the biz :cool:)

yknaa

This has happened with my 08 tcdi Focus too. I had to get the 3rd fuel injector replaced in a Ford garage. I still feel the odd sensation on the accelator as if the engine is about to lose power. Not a nice feeling on a motorway having experienced total oss of power a few times already.

Someone mentioned having similiar engine problems and blamed the air con. I drove from Cork to Dublin last week not using the air con or fan and did not have any trouble or feeling that the engine would shutdown. Can there be any connection or does that sound far fetched?

Plug

The fuel meter on the pumps can give bother on these and cause random cutting out. If ye got the codes read by IDS and posted them up we could give you more help.