Focus: Instrumentation needles behaving erratically and starting issues

ILikeBananas

My car is a 2004 Mark I Ford Focus.

In early December I noticed that when I turned on the car the instrument needles (speed and engine revs) would vibrate in a rapid fashion near zero before going to their normal positions. I didn't think much of it until one morning my car wouldn't start. The engine was turning and the electrics were on but it wasn't firing up.

I went to a garage and explained the symptoms. The guy told me it was probably my fuel pump and told me to start the engine while getting someone to slap their hand on the fuel tank. I remember being somewhat skeptical about this but I tried it and it worked. The following week I replaced both the fuel pump and fuel filter.

The thing is though that the issue with the needles persists and now my fuel gauge has stopped working. For a time it was stuck showing about 30% full but now it's stuck at 'F' regardless of the levels. The worrying thing is that some mornings it doesn't fire up immediately but takes maybe a second or two of having the ignition on.

Now I'm not even sure if it was the fuel pump that was the problem last month. Any ideas what might be the underlying issue here?

martinr5232

Its either a bad battery or instrument cluster is going faulty.

porsche boy

get you battery tested. sounds like its needing replacement.