So...you're probably all fed up of me moaning about how badly this car drives...  Scanned it this morning randomly and found these 3 fault codes for cylinder 2, 3 and 4.

Not really sure what that means though.  Is injector 1 crap and the others are trying to adapt to it?  Are those 3 all worn?  Any help appreciated! 

Is it a common issue @iantt ?

Cheers
Tom

Crikey, you did buy a lemon didn't you!! Looks like 3 injectors! Not common but I have changed the odd one on the mk3. 

5 minutes ago, iantt said:

Crikey, you did buy a lemon didn't you!! Looks like 3 injectors! Not common but I have changed the odd one on the mk3. 

Oh dear!   

Does the car start or run alright? My car the next day after purchasing it would run lumpy and chug a little bit of white smoke (which had a strong diesel smell) until its driven for a bit from then it would run normal. No fault codes came up so possibly it wasn't that bad for the ECU to pick it up. I firstly did the glow plugs which didn't solve the problem then just got all 4 injectors reconditioned then from there the car would start as it should. 

I was talking to Steve in hdi tuning about getting my injectors reconditioned and he said its better to get a second hand one with low mileage as reconditioned ones may have after market parts which may not last as long as genuine. 

4 minutes ago, zain611 said:

Does the car start or run alright? My car the next day after purchasing it would run lumpy and chug a little bit of white smoke (which had a strong diesel smell) until its driven for a bit from then it would run normal. No fault codes came up so possibly it wasn't that bad for the ECU to pick it up. I firstly did the glow plugs which didn't solve the problem then just got all 4 injectors reconditioned then from there the car would start as it should. 

I was talking to Steve in hdi tuning about getting my injectors reconditioned and he said its better to get a second hand one with low mileage as reconditioned ones may have after market parts which may not last as long as genuine. 

It starts alright but it idles a lot rougher than the mk2 did.  It doesn't drive well, never has since I bought it in Jan, very jumpy and jerky during slow speed driving but it's alright on the move in the higher gears.  No smoke from the tailpipe as the DPF masks that lol.  However it's on a much tighter emissions map than the mk2 was (Euro 5 instead of 4) and is also 8v rather than 16 which usually are a little less smooth so I don't know how much difference was to be expected.

On these 8v's there are two types of injectors, Bosch and Siemens.  Not sure which mine are yet, knowing my luck it'll be the Siemens as they're a lot more expensive lol.  Injectors are a bit of a lottery, I've had 'low mileage' ones that turned out to be rubbish, either they weren't as low as advertised or had been stored poorly.  And also had reconditioned ones that were rubbish due to cheap inferior parts lol.

It's booked in for MOT on Monday so assuming it passes I may just look into trading it in rather than fixing it.  I don't know how such a new and low mileage car can be so broken already lol. 

You never know how a car was treated before hand. For example the previous owner of my car only kept it for 6 months which would get you wondering to why that short or it might of had to do with the leaking injector. The owner before them kept the car for 5 years and had serviced it each time it went for MOT. I think this owner before took good care (not the owner before me but the one before them) of the car which probably can be why the oil feed pipe looked really clean. The guy selling my car said it was his wife's car and that several bits of work was done on it which till this day I don't believe.

I also had a thought but some people can set the mileage back so that can be something to think about. 

I'm not usually bothered a short previous ownership, I used to chop and change cars every few months through boredom and wanting to try different ones etc, not necessarily anything wrong with the car as such, and quite a few other 'car people' I knew at the time did the same thing.  Of course it was easier to do when I was buying cheap cars lol!

However you are right...the previous owner of my Mk3 Focus only had it 3 months, and it was up for sale for at least 2 of those months!  Prior to him was a 2 year ownership bought from a Ford dealer.  And then just one owner for the first 3 years before that, probably mobility or lease.  However the body and paintwork are amazing...there aren't any scratches, scuffs or swirls, and just one single shopping trolley height ding in the front passenger door.  So I would say the exterior was looked after at least...I don't think it's just a coincidence it's managed to stay that clean.  The Mk2 was around the same age and mileage when I bought it and the paintwork was considerably worse. 

I trust the mileage due to the condition of the bodywork and suspension etc tbh, I don't doubt it has only 45k.  I have a feeling it was probably a bad example from the factory though, just wish people would have everything fixed under warranty before I buy them lol!

Unlucky Tom. If i ever sell mine, I'll let you know 😁 What's involved to fix this?

12 hours ago, Albert27 said:

Unlucky Tom. If i ever sell mine, I'll let you know 😁 What's involved to fix this?

Fixing it isn't actually hard, it's the parts cost that's the issue with this job.  Over £100 each just for used or reconditioned injectors.  And these Siemens injectors are known to be pretty poor so low mileage isn't a guarantee of reliability.  

Ford quoted £1300 to replace all 4 injectors on an identical model on the facebook group...on a 5 year old car!  Although a least that one had done 20k more miles than mine.  It turned out that car only needed one replaced but still cost £350 at a garage.

Best thing to do is remove all 4 and have them tested on a proper test rig at a diesel specialist.  Then replace the faulty one(s) and fit new seals at the same time.  And simply bleed the system like you would after a filter change.  Then they probably need coding in but I haven't checked that yet, I reckon FORScan can do it.

 

I really wouldn't want another mk3!   I do have a second car atm, 2004 2.0 TDi 140bhp Audi A3...ice cold AC with dual zone climate, colour sat nav with SD cards for music, no DPF, lovely smooth drive, and it's doing the same MPG as the much newer, half mileage, smaller engined, less powerful, no-AC Focus lol.    I'll probably trade the Focus in for something petrol and VAG but a bit newer and lower mileage than the A3 if I can afford to.  Received a bit of inheritance recently so would rather spend some of that on a car that I actually like rather than choosing one just because it was cheap to buy and had £20 tax lol.  I never did like the Mk3, much preferred the Mk2.

If you have Siemens injectors most likely they'll need coding. Bosch ones some or most won't need coding. When I got my bosch injectors all reconditioned I put them back in the same order they came out and the car was able to start (with the help of some easy start) without coding them. 

I'm still deciding whether to get the 1.8T or 2.0T audi A3 in a few years. Euro 5 petrol cars are okay in the ultra low emissions zones I've heard so that's from around 2005 onwards 

I think you mean Euro 4 petrols are ok in the low emission zone, that's from around 2005.  Euro 5 came in around 2009...which is why the Mk3 Focus mapping is worse than the mk2 mapping as it's all about emissions rather than driveability lol.  

I've been thinking about it over night and it's just not worth me fixing the Focus, time I've spent on the injector(s) and seal kit plus £100 for the PCM update, the AC still won't work and the diff seal will still be leaking etc...  So I'll start looking around for a replacement and hope it doesn't get bad enough to cause a breakdown in the meantime.

Lol sorry yes it's euro 4 and thankfully it's from 2005. Any newer then I probably won't have the money to afford a car. 

You gonna have to see what you'll do on the focus. I find that odd with the AC, have you checked the condenser. I got my injectors reconditioned by a company called turbo parts UK which supplies the copper seals free. It came to around £275 all together so around £70 per injector. Only thing is I don't know if they do Siemens. I would recommend them though as they cleaned the injectors like new and they fixed my leaky injector problem. 

Zain, I assume you had to remove the injectors yourself and send them away?  How long did that take?

18 hours ago, south_bound said:

Zain, I assume you had to remove the injectors yourself and send them away?  How long did that take?

It took about 3 days for the injectors to come back from the place. The good thing with this company is that they arrange a courier to collect the injectors and it gets delivered next day. So the courier came and picked up the injectors, next day it arrived and the company I think had to get in some parts, next day they sent it out through the courier and the day after it came back. Actually didn't take long which I was happy about as I wanted to use the car after that week. Main thing is the rough idling on start up and excessive smoke stopped happening after getting them reconditioned which would of meant one or more of the injectors were leaking. 

3 day turnaround is good, I was expecting more like a week!  Depending on where you live, you might find you have a local diesel specialist.  There's one about 5 miles from me, no idea on prices or times but they've been going for years.

So, MOT today...

Tested out lights, washers, brakes etc on the way there...and found the horn had stopped working again!  Anyone elses mk3 horn stop working after a week or so without use?  First time I pressed it the climate panel just switched off...

So I sat in a random car park (which I think was a dogging spot) poking, prodding and punching the airbag in the hope that there was a loose connection...after a few minutes of this, and the radio randomly turning off as well, the horn beeped...phew!

So quickly round to the test centre and 'ping'...fuel light came on...with 88 miles on the range!  This car really does test me haha.

Left it there wondering what else will randomly break in the next hour...but amazingly passed, not even any advisories lol!  Also didn't have to worry about the new smoke limits as it only blew 0.24, limit is 0.55 under new regs.

To celebrate the pass I fitted my new air freshener...  I can't stand things hanging from the mirror so it'll probably move to a grab rail at some point lol.

 

On 5/31/2018 at 12:56 PM, TomsFocus said:

It starts alright but it idles a lot rougher than the mk2 did.  It doesn't drive well, never has since I bought it in Jan, very jumpy and jerky during slow speed driving but it's alright on the move in the higher gears.  No smoke from the tailpipe as the DPF masks that lol.  However it's on a much tighter emissions map than the mk2 was (Euro 5 instead of 4) and is also 8v rather than 16 which usually are a little less smooth so I don't know how much difference was to be expected.

On these 8v's there are two types of injectors, Bosch and Siemens.  Not sure which mine are yet, knowing my luck it'll be the Siemens as they're a lot more expensive lol.  Injectors are a bit of a lottery, I've had 'low mileage' ones that turned out to be rubbish, either they weren't as low as advertised or had been stored poorly.  And also had reconditioned ones that were rubbish due to cheap inferior parts lol.

It's booked in for MOT on Monday so assuming it passes I may just look into trading it in rather than fixing it.  I don't know how such a new and low mileage car can be so broken already lol. 

I have this same exact problem it's very jerky on cold start.