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johnH
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oh! i think i will just go and get diagnosed by them for £60, see what they offer me in terms of new alternator (if its that) and fitting....if its that much i will just buy a new myself and fit it myself. goes to show that dealerships are in fact should be called stealership daylight robbery...

i was told that i can have the alternator refurbished for £90. this was over the phone...is this a good idea?

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Refurbished over the phone, theres a new one ;) sounds like they may hold up a video call and talk you through it! lol

I probably wouldnt get it refurbed unless you get a guarantee with it, but overall, you may as well go and buy one from a scrappy instead of refurbing it, probably cheaper in fact and you could get it for a car with less age / miles!

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haha sorry i meant they told me over the phone that the unit can have a chance of being refurbed. i was doing a lot of reading regarding the ford smart charge last night. found some piccys of the harness being corroded etc and the random faults that causes. so im going to take the harness out and do some further tests to see if its bodged. i also read that the battery having faults could also cause this fault as it is part of the smart charge system (obviously) and as it is because the light stays on people on the ford transit forum say battery.

i have a elm327 coming, might hook that up and see what that says...if anything.

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sorry to be a pain the behind...but ive done some reading up.

it appears if it was a harness fault, the light would go off and come back on after 20-30secs and would be intermittant at times.

if it was the alternator i strongly beleive that the car would of died by now and not being able to cover over 300 miles now.

so that leaves the battery...does that sound reasonable or am i blowing smoke.

i was reading somewhere that when i was doing the tests with the multimeter i saw the voltage which did look low, but apparently the car loves amps, so when i got my results they were practically not good enough ie. good voltage pants amps. is this true?

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Could be the case, if the acid in the battery is "damaged" for lack of a better word (i.e. if it has been flattened, or is aged) then it wont be as healthy as in its younger years. If I remember right from my schooling days, Voltage is the current, and the speed at which it moves, the ampage is the "oomph" behind it.

Either way, I think you can safely rule out the alternator. Other than that, I would suggest if you dont want to dive into buying a battery, swap it with a friends, see if there foco starts to get the errors and yours behaves!

Im 99.9% confident that when you buy a new battery, your foco will be happy once again!

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you were right about my fuel filter in the past and on other faults ive read up on so i have no reason to doubt you jee....top dog. going to get a battery regardless on monday morn and will let you know...

thanks again for all the advice folks.

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you were right about my fuel filter in the past and on other faults ive read up on so i have no reason to doubt you jee....top dog. going to get a battery regardless on monday morn and will let you know...

thanks again for all the advice folks.

Yikes! keeping fingers crossed I don't disappoint ;)

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fitted new battery but....the light stayed on....going to take it for a long run, just to make sure the battery is fully charged. but in the mean time i have ordered a new alternator for £126 and should be delivered tomorrow.

if the light goes off, ill send the alternator back, unopened to the retailer and will get a refund. will also check the smart charge wires to make sure they are ok, before fitting the new alternator.

im going to be damned if its one of those things where the dealer needs to reset the system!

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fitted new battery but....the light stayed on....going to take it for a long run, just to make sure the battery is fully charged. but in the mean time i have ordered a new alternator for £126 and should be delivered tomorrow.

if the light goes off, ill send the alternator back, unopened to the retailer and will get a refund. will also check the smart charge wires to make sure they are ok, before fitting the new alternator.

im going to be damned if its one of those things where the dealer needs to reset the system!

if it was the battery then it will take say 10 starts of the engine with a good battery before the light goes out

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ah cool, ill keep a look out...cheers artscot.

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Not seen that before, but will be very disappointed in myself if its not the battery! fingers crossed it is just a run in period it needs...

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battery light has stayed on and i have a load of runs....the life of being a techy on 24./7 call, took it to auto electrician who said its the alternator... got my self a brand new alternator for £126 (£80 for alternator, delivery and tax included). im going to go for it and install it over the next few days...im wondering if anyone will be interested in a noddy guide (with pictures) on how to do this for future ref?

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Guides are always helpful! and it will save a lot of wondering later for anyone else! I could have done with this about 6 months ago!

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Guides are always helpful! and it will save a lot of wondering later for anyone else! I could have done with this about 6 months ago!

rather dissapointed also it was the alternator on the up side the battery would likely be knackered with a faulty cell anyway if not i suppose you have a spare and pics are always good mate

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right i looked at it and figured to the hell with it...phoned up the local garage and they fitted the alternator for £30 and gave me the old...

but guess what?

the light remains on. they had a look and claimed it was the main harness but just advised me to take it to dealer as they could do the work and it may not do anything, very honest of him. this is becoming a major pain in the !Removed!.

so well this sums it up its the harness!!!!!! has to be!!!

i check the resistance of the red wire only, only had time for that before i went to work, by disconnecting the harness from the alternator and removing, if i remember correctly, fuse 31 and checked resistance. resistance showing 00.06, which is good, wire is ok...

this, from reading other forums (transit and connect) the blue wire from alternator to ecu, is well the bad boy. so on sunday afters, going to get it up on the ramps disconnect the harness and carry out resistance checks on all, and visually check them and re-wire as nessessary.

another note i did ring ford, jennings ford, asked how much a diagnosis is....£85 with VAT (£102!!!!!!) i swiftly put phone down! why pay someone to tell me what is wrong, what i already know, and to do a job i can do?!?

sorry for not being able to get a guide for the alternator, but i can possibly get a noddy guide for checking the resistance and rectifying issues with the harness. anything that helps others, i say.

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right i looked at it and figured to the hell with it...phoned up the local garage and they fitted the alternator for £30 and gave me the old...

but guess what?

the light remains on. they had a look and claimed it was the main harness but just advised me to take it to dealer as they could do the work and it may not do anything, very honest of him. this is becoming a major pain in the !Removed!.

so well this sums it up its the harness!!!!!! has to be!!!

i check the resistance of the red wire only, only had time for that before i went to work, by disconnecting the harness from the alternator and removing, if i remember correctly, fuse 31 and checked resistance. resistance showing 00.06, which is good, wire is ok...

this, from reading other forums (transit and connect) the blue wire from alternator to ecu, is well the bad boy. so on sunday afters, going to get it up on the ramps disconnect the harness and carry out resistance checks on all, and visually check them and re-wire as nessessary.

another note i did ring ford, jennings ford, asked how much a diagnosis is....£85 with VAT (£102!!!!!!) i swiftly put phone down! why pay someone to tell me what is wrong, what i already know, and to do a job i can do?!?

sorry for not being able to get a guide for the alternator, but i can possibly get a noddy guide for checking the resistance and rectifying issues with the harness. anything that helps others, i say.

my local ford is 70 inc vat for a diagnostics jennings are extortionate for many things so its the smart charge harness thats causing the issues

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just out of curiosity are arnold clarke any better?

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Checked the harness again from the alternator right the way to the point the main harness goes down to the passenger front wheel, no breaks and good resistance. This leaves me to believe that the fault may have to be cleared from ford before the light goes out. If this is the case I am going to buy myself a ford wds diagnostic tool, no way am I going to keep paying ford £102 to diagnose a fault

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Very good idea, out of curiosity how much does the WDS cost?

A shame all round about the battery, and also the alternator - I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we were all hoping it was just going to be a battery issue! I just hope your WDS allows you to reset and the issue does disappear once and for all!

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the wds is going to cost £390 and its a clone of the dealership tool...so it can do everything and anything :P

thanks jee.

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So we know where to come when we get an error then! shame your all the way up where I used to live and not where I do now :(

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you never know i could be down your way at anytime...i do mega miles all the time...just a few weeks ago i had to drive to headley court for an hour lol whitby to near london lol

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Presuming I still have the car when you next venture this way (as I am damned sure if I do it will need to be scanned!) might have to meet up ;) muchos cheapos compared to the dealer! in fact, paying you by the hour and fuel would probably still work out cheaper! lol

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more than likely will be cheaper. costs about £40-£50 (bout to go to a lottery win amount - price of fuel) to fill my tank and i get around 500 miles if i take it easy. so a journey down to south coast and back to newcastle should be doable haha.

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right an update on this topic haha.

phoned up jennings ford gateshead and booked the car in for monday morning. same price as before for diagnostic, but he informed me that if they diagnose and find a fault and they fix it the diagnosis will be free! which to be fair can be a life saver haha especially if the repair is something simple and cheap lol but being a dealer i can almost guarentee they will bend me over a table and well....haha

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