Tomplington Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Hey, Had an intermittent fault on my 2010 Ford Focus for around 3 months now, it has been in and out of the garage several times to no avail. Sometimes when the car is under load it will judder/splutter and really struggle to accelerate, sometimes at low speed or at idle it will cut out/stall and on occasion it will misfire. Throughout all of these issues the car will not throw up the engine warning light or store fault codes and I am wondering if anyone on here has had a similar experience or would be able to pinpoint the exact problem, the garage is currently looking down the route of an issue within the ECU. To try and help narrow it down further, here is a list of the new parts that have been fitted to no avail: Ignition Coil Set of Spark Plugs New Leads Fixed an issue with the internal clocks Crankshaft Position Sensor Camshaft Position Sensors I don't know much about cars but I would really appreciate some guidance from you guys :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buggerlugz Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Had this on my 2012 mk 3 focus. It needs the ECU updating at the dealers and them to clean out the throttle body. My local dealer charged £150 for the privilege, but it did solve the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenFord Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 19 minutes ago, Buggerlugz said: Had this on my 2012 mk 3 focus. It needs the ECU updating at the dealers and them to clean out the throttle body. My local dealer charged £150 for the privilege, but it did solve the problem. Solutions like this really annoy me. The car left the factory fully working, why does it suddenly need a software update to work? (Cleaning out the throttle body I can understand!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin#95 Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Sounds like a bad connection on the plug that connects to the throttle position sensor. Unplug it and spray wd40 onto the connector plug and socket. I had this on my fiesta and spraying the connector fixed the problem and the car drives like new. It was the last thing I checked after changing all the other things. Be careful not to bend the pins by trying to clean them. Wd40 alone should be enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin#95 Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Also, buy a code reader and check for any pending codes or misfires. The MIL might not come on but pending codes can still show up. What spark gap was used on the new plugs. My fiesta had 1.3mm but the new ones I fitted had 1.0mm and changing one plug fixed a misfire problem. All my plugs are now 1mm even though the manual says 1.3mm. The smaller gap puts less stress on the ignition coil pack and it runs OK without any problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George. 1991 Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Hi Kevin. Interesting, this is also happening to me as well... where about's is the throttle cable is located say on my car on a 2006 Focus...? I have booked my car to go into a TC Harrisons Ford Garage in my local town next week on Tuesday to have looked into. I'm just hoping I don't have to pay too much at a cost of an arm and a leg 😭 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenFord Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 8 hours ago, George. 1991 said: Hi Kevin. Interesting, this is also happening to me as well... where about's is the throttle cable is located say on my car on a 2006 Focus...? I have booked my car to go into a TC Harrisons Ford Garage in my local town next week on Tuesday to have looked into. I'm just hoping I don't have to pay too much at a cost of an arm and a leg 😭 . If your dealer says you need a software update, could you ask why? 😀 I'm still curious how so many are forced into paying for an update, and in which way, it has gone so faulty as to effect the normal performance of the car... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomsFocus Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 14 hours ago, StephenFord said: Solutions like this really annoy me. The car left the factory fully working, why does it suddenly need a software update to work? (Cleaning out the throttle body I can understand!) It didn't... It may have been working ok at the time, but so many variables occur after that, different temperatures, humidity, weather conditions, driving styles, and of course everything wears and fatigues and ages at a slow but constant speed... So it may need an update to accept a slightly worn sensor, or TB motor, or a prolonged spell of cold, damp weather, or a DPF or EGR blocking more quickly than expected for example. However, that's fairly normal on a car up to 5 or 6 years old...there's almost no way a 10 year old car suddenly needs an update, let alone a 14 year old one!! There are so many different cars and engines been mentioned in this thread now...and the OP didn't even mention which engine they have lol. All we know is that it's petrol... If it's a 1.8, they should be checking the compression as these are well known for faulty piston rings. Then they need to get Ford specific diags on it, such as Forscan, and let us know what the codes are before we can give a better idea of what might be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenFord Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 Not convinced Tom. So, the 'update' is so that the car can cope with various failing components that have fallen out of factory spec? So why not design that in as any moron will know that a car wears out over time? I'm still an old cynic. If they 'updated' free of charge, that would be fine. But when so many seem to charge a huge sum, I'd like to know exactly why my car would need it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomsFocus Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 8 minutes ago, StephenFord said: Not convinced Tom. So, the 'update' is so that the car can cope with various failing components that have fallen out of factory spec? So why not design that in as any moron will know that a car wears out over time? I'm still an old cynic. If they 'updated' free of charge, that would be fine. But when so many seem to charge a huge sum, I'd like to know exactly why my car would need it... The update is for lots of reasons as above... You just can't test for everything, especially in these days of ever decreasing emissions limits they simply don't have the time to test cars fully before putting them on sale and the new emissions regs come out.* Real world conditions are very different to factory testing so bring up new bugs, just like with any other software... Any safety critical software updates are done free of charge and the customers must be notified of this. Any non-safety critical updates, such a slightly jerky engine at low speed, are not considered critical and will only be applied when & if the customer complains. These are what you pay for because your car is then taking up an hour of garage space while it's updating. Personally I believe these updates should be available for the general public (or at least those of us competent enough to do it) but sadly that's not my choice to make. *When I was at college in 2010, we got a brand new Seat Ibiza to work on...hundreds of them were given away free to colleges and training centres because the emissions were already out of date before they were put on sale! The rest were presumably recycled... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin#95 Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 On my car the tps connector was under the inlet manifold. The reason I never cleaned it before was because I could not get to it. I ended up using a screwdriver to lift the red tab up and another one to push the connector up from the bottom. Sprayed it with wd40 and used the screw drivers to carefully push it back on. When the problems occured it was worse when cold and damp. Started ok but I had to leave it for 2 mins to warm up. If I drove of before that an EAC fail warning light came on occasionally. When driving it sometimes misfires. Eventually it started driving jerky and became dangerous. The car is driving ok now. Worth trying to spray the tps connector. Might be easier to get to on some cars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George. 1991 Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 Just for bit of an update news on my Car which is a 1.4 Petrol which is also 14 years old. Its now at a local TCH garage. But when I went in last night before rush hour traffic, they said for the first hour they were charging me £66 for the investigation and an further hour or so they are charging me £101.00, so My Dad was with me at the time and he said to the woman at the service Desk saying "***** Hell it's like BET365!!" Anyways more to the point, a very genuine guy came from the workshop to explain to me and my Dad the fault may could be some loose connection from the Cluster unit or loose wires etc (as where I live the roads are just BAD and Bumpy as hell). So I let him carry on with the job within his hand for the time being I will have to see what the other or some verdict be for tomorrow or Friday for me to pick it up without them charging me even more money, robbing sods. Oh plus another thing that was so cheeky the woman mentioned to me and my Dad from last night was that my car is 14 years old you should just scrap it. I was thinking in the back on my mind saying Er No...! Just so frustrating! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenFord Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 2 minutes ago, George. 1991 said: ...Oh plus another thing that was so cheeky the woman mentioned to me and my Dad from last night was that my car is 14 years old you should just scrap it. I was thinking in the back on my mind saying Er No...! ***** Barmy is the world and so frustrating! 14 years old?? Your car is barely run in! I would have told the woman a few home truths. But then, I'm a cheeky git... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George. 1991 Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 Ha haa. Na, I'm one of those people that I want everything to be done perfectly without messing things up. I'd rather just simply solder the printed circuit board where the connection is loose from the cluster unit is, that's all there is to it really and you put it all back together and plug it back into your dashboard and reset the unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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