Hi everyone,

Last night after 1km drive I noticed my temp gauge was much higher than it should be, and the fuel gauge said I had half a tank when I knew that there was much less than that in it.  Got home okay, then started it from cold this morning.  At cold, the temp gauge read half normal running temp, and again the fuel reading was too high.  Checked coolant, oil etc. and everything is okay.

Unfortunately my mechanic has just landed in Spain on two weeks vacation so I'm kinda stuck, and worried about driving the car at all.

But it is driving fine, performance is normal.

Can anyone shed a bit of light on this?  Note though that my mechanical knowledge is a bit limited 🙂

Thanks in advance!

I'd be interested to hear thoughts on this.  @TomsFocus , any ideas?

I'd guess it's probably the start of a cluster fault, common issue on the MK2 Focus.  Can't think of anything else that would link those 2 gauges.  You could remove the cluster and check that the plug is tight and that it's earthed well.  

I wouldn't suggest there is anything mechanically wrong and it should be fine to drive until you can get it sorted.  There is a risk of the immobiliser getting stuck on with cluster faults but that's something to bear in mind.

Bit of a stab in the dark, but you could try a needle sweep in the 'hidden' dash test mode (YouTube it if you don't know) to try and reset the gauges but that is a bit of long shot.

Hi I bought a 1.5dci ztech ford focus eastate 14 plate and the temp gauge hardly moves had the thermostat and temp sensor. Replaced still the same any ideas cheers John

 

32 minutes ago, johnogie said:

Hi I bought a 1.5dci ztech ford focus eastate 14 plate and the temp gauge hardly moves had the thermostat and temp sensor. Replaced still the same any ideas cheers John

 

Hi John, you'd be better off starting your own thread for this.

Do you only do short journeys?  Is the cooling fan stuck on?

On 4/9/2019 at 11:08 AM, Jennifer Mc said:

I noticed my temp gauge was much higher than it should be, and the fuel gauge said I had half a tank when I knew that there was much less than that in it.  Got home okay, then started it from cold this morning.  At cold, the temp gauge read half normal running temp, and again the fuel reading was too high. 

The gauges are driven by little stepper motors. When the ignition is turned on, they go back a bit, usually to hit the end stop. then up to the zero or normal setting. I noticed when playing with my IC that if for some reason they are too high when the ignition goes off, then it can take several ignition cycles to get them back to normal. If too high, they are not driven back far enough to hit the end stop, and only go back by a little on each cycle.

Maybe some odd glitch drove them up to high, and they will return in a few cycles. Otherwise it does sound like an IC fault as Tom suggests, but rather an odd one. The speedo & rpm gauges use just the same system, and the fuel gauge input data is hard-wired to the IC, while the other 3 gauges info comes from the HS_CAN bus. But 2006 was a bad year for the Focus IC!