Hi everyone, I'm new here, and looking for advice.

My car has recently started throwing up warning lights (namely a red frost symbol, the break warning light) on the dash, and the temperature on the dash is replaced with "---", this is closely followed by an error for the PAS. This is intermittent, and can appear shortly after starting the engine, or 5 minutes in to the drive. It does disappear after a random amount of time too, sometimes 5 minutes into driving, sometimes 20 miles in to a journey. It doesn't seem to depend on the journey type (city or motorway). I have come to the conclusion that it could be a potential wiring issue, as - on a recent motorway journey - the fault lights appeared and disappeared in correspondence with bumps in the road.

 

The lights coincide with my indicators, reversing lights and sensors stopping working, and are closely followed by the PAS failing. Recently, the battery light is on every time I turn the engine on, and the traction control and ABS lights flash too. Finally, the dash completely turns off, this is remedied by putting the clutch down for some reason, and I can delay the lights coming on straight away by revving the engine a lot.

 

The car had a new battery in the last 6 weeks, I've pushed all of the connectors and fuses inside the car and in the bonnet in, and some of them were slightly lose, but nothing obvious.

 

The car currently also has an engine warning light, this indicates that the DPF needs looking at, however I am holding off on that until I get this issue fixed. 

 

The garage I took it to plugged the car into a computer (despite me telling them it doesn't indicate anything(I have an OBD2 sensor, and can see if for myself)), and couldn't find anything conclusive.  I really don't want to have to pay for something that doesn't need doing again. 

 

Any help would be really appreciated.

You've pushed all the connectors and fuses but have you checked the battery terminals are nice and tight and clean? Sorry for asking the obvious but these things can be easily overlooked. 🙂

We're any of these faults present prior to the new battery being fitted?

i assume this is MK2 Focus. MK2 Focus is famous for having the soldering fail in the speedo cluster unit. There is a computer chip built into the circuit board in there which controls a lot of stuff so a bit of solder connection failure can cause a whole host of strange things. I do not know if the faulty soldering persisted right up to the end of the MK2s or if it is only more prevelant on earlier year.   I say 'faulty soldering'  but it could be down to the quality of 'lead free' solder. Industry was banned from using solder with lead in it. Lead free solder just is not as good. As proven by the fact the space and military industries are still allowed to use leaded solder.

I am not saying this is definitely your problem but it could be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0uQgvrp1xg

shows what the circuit board in the speedo is like. There are other videos showing dismantling etc. 

11 hours ago, WitchyBach said:

The lights coincide with my indicators, reversing lights and sensors stopping working, and are closely followed by the PAS failing. Recently, the battery light is on every time I turn the engine on, and the traction control and ABS lights flash too. Finally, the dash completely turns off, this is remedied by putting the clutch down for some reason, and I can delay the lights coming on straight away by revving the engine a lot.

Dead or dying Alternator. Indicators, reversing lights and battery light are not controlled by the IC (Instrument Cluster or Dash).  Only the indication LEDS are on the IC. Lights are controlled by the BCM (passenger fusebox), battery charging is controlled by the ECU. The Electro-Hydraulic PAS needs plenty of battery power to work. All the symptoms you have described are consistent with low battery volts due to insufficient charge.

If that is ok, then the intermittent nature (bumps in road), if it affects systems that are not controlled by the IC, could be due to one of the heavy earth or power cables from battery to engine, or battery to body. They can be loose at their connections or develop internal faults in the cables.