I have a 2012 Focus 1.6 TDCi, had no problems with it so far but when I was driving it for the first time today, it randomly felt very underpowered after moving off from a roundabout. I could tell straight away there was a problem and when I accelerated harder than usual to check, it certainly didn’t move quicker than it should. 

I pulled over immediately and switched the car off. I left it for a bit and when I came to switch it back on again there was a slight crunch noise for a very split second and it cut out and didn’t start up. I attempted to switch back on again and it started up fine and was back to normal again and it wasn’t underpowered anymore. 

Later on, I approached a set of lights and the car engaged the stop/start function when stationary. When I pressed the clutch again to start up and go, it began to start then just cut out straight away - I quickly turned off completely and back on again, and it was fine.

Any advice will be helpful!

14 hours ago, 2001Billy said:

I have a 2012 Focus 1.6 TDCi, had no problems with it so far but when I was driving it for the first time today, it randomly felt very underpowered after moving off from a roundabout. I could tell straight away there was a problem and when I accelerated harder than usual to check, it certainly didn’t move quicker than it should. 

I pulled over immediately and switched the car off. I left it for a bit and when I came to switch it back on again there was a slight crunch noise for a very split second and it cut out and didn’t start up. I attempted to switch back on again and it started up fine and was back to normal again and it wasn’t underpowered anymore. 

Later on, I approached a set of lights and the car engaged the stop/start function when stationary. When I pressed the clutch again to start up and go, it began to start then just cut out straight away - I quickly turned off completely and back on again, and it was fine.

Any advice will be helpful!

Hi Billy.

When was the fuel filter last changed?  This is a good starting point as it can cause issues like this and is cheap to change.

13 hours ago, Albert27 said:

Hi Billy.

When was the fuel filter last changed?  This is a good starting point as it can cause issues like this and is cheap to change.

Thank you for the response. I’ve only owned the car for around 7 months now, but the previous (and only) owner purchased it through a lease plan, therefore it was serviced and well maintained and I have documentation of all that was done. However, in the extensive service history, I can’t seem to find anywhere any sign of a new fuel filter. After research it seems this could be the case of needing a new one.

The sluggishness seems to have stopped and it only happened once. However, the difficulty starting is very irregular in how often it happens - sometimes it can be the first time driving, but sometimes it can be randomly later on when restarting again. What happens when I try to start and it fails, is it sounds as if the belt is spinning, but the car doesn’t actually start up.

Thank you again for the response

23 minutes ago, 2001Billy said:

Thank you for the response. I’ve only owned the car for around 7 months now, but the previous (and only) owner purchased it through a lease plan, therefore it was serviced and well maintained and I have documentation of all that was done. However, in the extensive service history, I can’t seem to find anywhere any sign of a new fuel filter. After research it seems this could be the case of needing a new one.

The sluggishness seems to have stopped and it only happened once. However, the difficulty starting is very irregular in how often it happens - sometimes it can be the first time driving, but sometimes it can be randomly later on when restarting again. What happens when I try to start and it fails, is it sounds as if the belt is spinning, but the car doesn’t actually start up.

Thank you again for the response

If I remember correctly, Ford's interval for fuel filters is every 37500 miles which is too long and means even with an extensive service history the filter could still be getting blocked.  I change mine every other time I do a service which works out about every 20k miles.  I would definitely start with the filter and then if the problem persists, look at reading any diagnostic codes for clues 🙂