May I ask..Re Engine/fuel fault on a 07 Focus TDci.

[gnawsome]

Re Engine/fuel fault on a 07 Focus TDci.
Happened several times over several months - Very LOW Miles Fault shows as "engine system fault" and engine becomes restricted so I have been able to limp home.
Next time I try it fails to start - its current state.
On the previous failure occasion in Nov I had to pay for recovery to a local garage where I asked that they
Repair
Service
MoT
The sevice offered would have included a replacement fuel filter.
I started a journey last week and the fault returned - so I limped home.
About 150 miles covered since the repair and service.
I contacted the garage and they said it probably just needs bleeding and they would send someone when they had time so as to avoid a recovery fee.
I have worked using diesels for several decades and owned diesel cars since the '70s but at 86yo can no longer do much myself.
This is made more difficult when the HAYNES pics don't seem to agree with what I can see.
My initial question would be;
Does anyone have close experience with the fuel system of this vehicle and have an idea of what fault may have been developing or caused or overlooked when being repaired/serviced...

[monabri]

Could the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) be responsible for putting your car into limp home mode?

Are you driving low mileages/ short journies?

( experience of wife's 06 Mondeo tdci going into limp home mode due to low miles and short journies. Cured by a mechanic friend who simply revved the car very hard to burn off the particulates. It was revved very hard ...as though it was a stolen car driven by joy riders. This was 5 years ago..problem has not reoccurred).

[BigB]

We for many years had an 03 Mondeo TDCi 130 - great car to own/drive bar the occasional (when young) and more frequent (as it got older) lumpy fuel delivery issues, a couple of times resulting in limp home.

We gave it up after 11 years when advised the replacement fuel injectors would likely be the solution, but not guaranteed, and the 4 figure cost of the replacement was similar to the value of the vehicle at the time. Reading around the web at the time, there were various anecdotes about other people who'd had issues, and that Ford had design issues with the TDCi fuel delivery system, and also that they'd kept it suppressed. Anecdotal at the time, I never followed it up later, but we opted out.

To this day, when we see a MkII Mondeo TDCi 00-07 (I think), we comment how few we've seen on the roads for x years and how those cars never lasted and probably the conspiracy was correct. Mondeo would have been a UK best seller through those years, along with Fiesta and Focus. "Eeh, I were right about that saddle though".

Apologies if this has no relevance for an 07 Focus Tdci discussion.

[scottnsilky]

You could try asking the question on a Ford Focus forum, such as talkford.com they have a very comprehensive coverage of all Ford models. Particulate filter is one possibility. Do you have a local diesel specialist garage?

[gnawsome]

Could the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) be responsible for putting your car into limp home mode?

Are you driving low mileages/ short journies?

( experience of wife's 06 Mondeo tdci going into limp home mode due to low miles and short journies. Cured by a mechanic friend who simply revved the car very hard to burn off the particulates. It was revved very hard ...as though it was a stolen car driven by joy riders. This was 5 years ago..problem has not reoccurred).

Hi and thanks for your points.
I have 2 cars, a 1litre Kia petrol and the Focus diesel
The Kia does the short/shopping and the diesel does longer runs ( not very long as I get older) usualy a min of 10miles and always a bit of max revs in low gear on a quiet stretch. But the trips may be infrequent and perhaps unused for 2~3 weeks.
For all previous MoTs I have asked for a read out of the emmisions and they have always been at the very cleanest end of the scale - largely due to the 'Italian Tune-up' just before the test.
I did suffer the same problems as your wife's Mondeo but I tried some fuel additive and a 'hard drive' and this gave a good result but that was several years back and may be needing a repeat dose. Trouble is - no good in a non-runner.
I dug out an old can of Easy Start but couldn't see where to apply it, maybe just as well as I've always been wary of the stuff.
Trading standards consider I have reasonable grounds but I don't really want any more gnaws . . .

[gnawsome]

You could try asking the question on a Ford Focus forum, such as talkford.com they have a very comprehensive coverage of all Ford models. Particulate filter is one possibility. Do you have a local diesel specialist garage?

Hi I did try one Ford forum but couldn't get on their wavelength in so far as it seemed to be heavily sprinkled with typos and street talk so I felt a bit hobbled in trying to understand. I'll have a look at the one you suggest.
There are local diesel specialists but my experience of many years back was that they seemed to search for the most expensive options and what I have is a 16yo 86k miles car with a value c£1k on a good day on which I recently spent several hundred on repair and maintenance, just now paying insurance premium and next month RFL.
However the car is relatively 'unworn' and is a good enough fit to my requirements and I am aware there is an 'opportunity cost' that has to be accepted.
Local scrappy price £318 collected

[DrFfybes]

what I have is a 16yo 86k miles car with a value c£1k on a good day on which I recently spent several hundred on repair and maintenance, just now paying insurance premium and next month RFL.
However the car is relatively 'unworn' and is a good enough fit to my requirements and I am aware there is an 'opportunity cost' that has to be accepted.
Local scrappy price £318 collected

I think your estimate of value is a bit pessimistic if you look on Autotrader, £1700 seems nearer the mark.

I'd be tempted to get the fault cleared and drive it for a week and then list it for sale.

[redsturgeon]

If they are sending someone round then hopefully they will be able to diagnose and fix it by plugging in an OBD2 scanner.

John

[gnawsome]

I think your estimate of value is a bit pessimistic if you look on Autotrader, £1700 seems nearer the mark.

I'd be tempted to get the fault cleared and drive it for a week and then list it for sale.

That is so much the problem... getting the fault cleared and that cost.
Fault free and I would keep it for the last lap. I'm never going to wear it out but chasing a replacement and getting insurance at a sensible price would certainly wear me out (? solution).
We all dread 'the money pit' that some motors become with repairs more costly than the holding value and one being highly suspicious that the high cost is - in part - the underwriting of the the staff's lack of knowledge - it maybe uncomfortable but I have seen cases of such.
Combine that with the proprietors pressure to survive by upselling makes the elderly the 'low hanging fruit'

[GrahamPlatt]

Why not simply get yourself an OBD2 scanner & find out what the problem is?
They’re not expensive.

[9873210]

OBD2 scanners come with a range of functionality. The cheap ones don't do everything you might want. It's possible that a basic scan of error codes will locate the problem, but the more expensive ones do much more, including interpreting multiple codes and real time monitoring and diagnostics while running. An example of this is the insurance monitors, although these are monitoring the driver rather than the vehicles detailed operation.

Working in design engineering we used the equivalent of OBD2 to allow a laptop to take complete control of the system. Using this outside of the lab required a full-blown product release review. It allowed us the automate testing, but it also allowed us to override some critical safety systems. (The lab had concrete walls, fire suppression, and other things to deal with the more interesting mistakes)

[DrFfybes]

Why not simply get yourself an OBD2 scanner & find out what the problem is?
They’re not expensive.

... and from the OP...

but at 86yo can no longer do much myself.

Besides, a code reader simply gives you an idea of what is wrong and allows you to clear the code, the underlying fault is still there. And that's without them pulling a muscle trying to find the connection port.

[bungeejumper]

Re Engine/fuel fault on a 07 Focus TDci.
Happened several times over several months - Very LOW Miles Fault shows as "engine system fault" and engine becomes restricted so I have been able to limp home.
.......
Does anyone have close experience with the fuel system of this vehicle and have an idea of what fault may have been developing or caused or overlooked when being repaired/serviced...

Well, for what it's worth, I had an 02 Focus TDCI, and it had a serious fuel system design fault which I'd have supposed that they'd have sorted out by the time your 07 model was made. But just in case.....Take a sip of something strong, and read on.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the fuel rail on that model was running vastly over pressure because the pressure sensors were in the wrong places. Or at least, that's what my garage told me. I understand that Ford eventually redesigned the whole fuel rail system, but not before it had cost me five fuel injectors. (one initially, and then two went down at once so my garage replaced the whole set.)

Believe it or not, if the fuel pressure in the rail is too high, the diesel fuel will eventually eat away the metal in the injectors, and that's when they fail. For me, the first sign was that I got a number of limp mode situations, although to be fair the car would always restart and run correctly. Then one injector went down big time while I was dashing across the country on a hospital emergency mission, and I was blowing grey-white unburnt diesel smoke all the way. (In fact, the car ran pretty well on three cylinders!)

Then my garage fixed it, and then it happened again. In Burgundy, close to the Swiss border, and the car had to be repatriated to the UK on a lorry. Once it had been fixed again, I sold the car.

The moral of the story, insofar as there is one: Make sure your garage knows all about the fuel rail, and that it's not one of the early models with the sensors in the wrong places. And that the fuel rail, the injectors and the ecu are all singing from the same hymn sheet. I can't give you much better advice than that, except to say again that the early TDCI models were buggy, and that it's a point worth focusing on.

On the subject of Haynes manuals, they stopped being very useful in the 1980s, by which time there were so many engine variants of every car on the road that they couldn't possibly have kept up. The publishing director of Haynes used to be a drinking buddy of mine, and he used to say that people didn't buy the manuals to fix their own cars any more. Instead, they bought them so that they could argue with their garages. Nothing changes, then.

BJ

[gnawsome]

Why not simply get yourself an OBD2 scanner & find out what the problem is?
They’re not expensive.

'cos I don't have the intelligence to work a mobile phone - nor do I have a laptop.
Always used to laugh at the sign 'all the gear - no idea'

[gnawsome]

... And that's without them pulling a muscle trying to find the connection port.

Been widowed a few years now...

[ten0rman]

I used to have an 07 Focus 1.8 diesel. (Worst car I've ever had the misfortune to own, but that's another story!) Anyway, I bought it at 27K miles, and within a few weeks, it started "misfiring" at medium to high rpm. Local garage tried it out, confirmed the problem and sent it for an electronic diagnosis to a Ford main dealer. Result was a collapsed fuel filter partially blocking fuel flow! At that time, much to my disgust, it cost £30+ for the fuel filter and £70+ for the diagnostic.

I hate Fords!

(Sorry about the anti-Ford diatribe, but after what went wrong with that car, I'll never have another Ford as long as I live. In contrast, the car that replaced it, a Toyota petrol Avensis estate, has so far done 120K miles with no problems, other than self-inflicted ones, but absolutely nothing major.)

ten0rman

[gnawsome]

I used to have an 07 Focus 1.8 diesel. (Worst car I've ever had the misfortune to own, but that's another story!) Anyway, I bought it at 27K miles, and within a few weeks, it started "misfiring" at medium to high rpm. Local garage tried it out, confirmed the problem and sent it for an electronic diagnosis to a Ford main dealer. Result was a collapsed fuel filter partially blocking fuel flow! At that time, much to my disgust, it cost £30+ for the fuel filter and £70+ for the diagnostic.

I hate Fords!

(Sorry about the anti-Ford diatribe, but after what went wrong with that car, I'll never have another Ford as long as I live. In contrast, the car that replaced it, a Toyota petrol Avensis estate, has so far done 120K miles with no problems, other than self-inflicted ones, but absolutely nothing major.)

ten0rman

Hi
Very timely - I've now got the car back Fri 10th
It's been a long running saga.
Many thanks for all the suggestions and contributions that have helped me to make 'more advised' choices.
I did not manage the situation well!

Because it was a non-runner something had to be done so I bought a cheap (£20) OBD2 scanner that told me I had a blocked DPF and gave the option of ‘Clear Codes’- that allowed the starting of the car.
YOU TUBE indicated remedies but they were not within my ability, the steps being;
on-car infusion of a chemical
off-car infusion of chemical
off-car and sent to specialist cleaner
These steps were available either via a local workshop or a mobile specialist
I elected that a local workshop sort it out.
The lw remarked that they had applied the chemical on-car and the car had created a very large amount of smoke and had cleared the blockage.
I've not had occasion to properly test drive the car yet so how effective the remedy is remains to be seen - hopefully on Monday.
The cost was £231 - hardly less than the £250 quoted for a full off-car specialist treatment AT HOME and without any guilt about the the rubbish thrown out into the atmosphere at the workshop.

[bungeejumper]

The lw remarked that they had applied the chemical on-car and the car had created a very large amount of smoke and had cleared the blockage.
I've not had occasion to properly test drive the car yet so how effective the remedy is remains to be seen - hopefully on Monday.
The cost was £231 - hardly less than the £250 quoted for a full off-car specialist treatment AT HOME and without any guilt about the the rubbish thrown out into the atmosphere at the workshop.

Yes, I've heard of people cleaning out their diesel DPFs with a shot of chemicals, and my recollection from the VW forums (back in my diesel Passat days) is that it worked fairly well if it was professionally done. Or at least, it would be enough to buy you a few years.

£231 sounds good to me. Especially compared with the £1,200-ish cost of a new DPF. Some day my wife's 14 year old TDI Golf will probably need the same treatment.

Well done, and keep us posted.

BJ

[DrFfybes]

I did not manage the situation well!

Because it was a non-runner something had to be done so I bought a cheap (£20) OBD2 scanner that told me I had a blocked DPF and gave the option of ‘Clear Codes’- that allowed the starting of the car.
YOU TUBE indicated remedies but they were not within my ability, the steps being;
on-car infusion of a chemical
off-car infusion of chemical
off-car and sent to specialist cleaner
These steps were available either via a local workshop or a mobile specialist
I elected that a local workshop sort it out.
The lw remarked that they had applied the chemical on-car and the car had created a very large amount of smoke and had cleared the blockage.
I've not had occasion to properly test drive the car yet so how effective the remedy is remains to be seen - hopefully on Monday.
The cost was £231 - hardly less than the £250 quoted for a full off-car specialist treatment AT HOME and without any guilt about the the rubbish thrown out into the atmosphere at the workshop.

Actually, I'd say you manged the situation quite well.

So take it on a long run, and then decide if you are selling or keeping it. If selling, burn any paperwork referring to the recent repair

If the error code stays off you could probably get more than you money back from WBAC.

[gnawsome]

I did not manage the situation well!

Because it was a non-runner something had to be done so I bought a cheap (£20) OBD2 scanner that told me I had a blocked DPF and gave the option of ‘Clear Codes’- that allowed the starting of the car.
YOU TUBE indicated remedies but they were not within my ability, the steps being;
on-car infusion of a chemical
off-car infusion of chemical
off-car and sent to specialist cleaner
These steps were available either via a local workshop or a mobile specialist
I elected that a local workshop sort it out.
The lw remarked that they had applied the chemical on-car and the car had created a very large amount of smoke and had cleared the blockage.
I've not had occasion to properly test drive the car yet so how effective the remedy is remains to be seen - hopefully on Monday.
The cost was £231 - hardly less than the £250 quoted for a full off-car specialist treatment AT HOME and without any guilt about the the rubbish thrown out into the atmosphere at the workshop.

Actually, I'd say you manged the situation quite well.

So take it on a long run, and then decide if you are selling or keeping it. If selling, burn any paperwork referring to the recent repair

If the error code stays off you could probably get more than you money back from WBAC.

And now - I feel a complete idiot;
Decided to do shopping and refuel.
Started OK - drove c200m down the road and cut-out - dead no re-start!
walked home to get OBD2.
Reads P0100 Mass or volume air flow A circuit
Repairers will do nothing today leaving it stranded.
On-line advice is to remove MAF and apply cleaner...
Did sombody say moneypit