Mark's Mk3 Focus ST Estate

[MDG950]

On 04/02/2021 at 9:26 PM, RAIDER32 said:

I've been considering asking my local garage about how much it will cost to do a full overhaul of things that fail with age (I'll try to source the parts cheap),

My car is almost 6 so not something I'll do any time soon, this is hopefully a long term car so I'd like to change out bushings, springs and brakes all at the same time,
I'm hoping that will give me piece of mind and maybe cheaper in the long run, not having to take it in every time it fails an MOT,
I've seen it so many times before, a £5 rubber part takes £65 of labour to fit lol.

My Honda before the focus got to 150,000 miles before the MOT suggested the bushes were worn, instead of changing the bushes I changed the entire front suspension over. New dampers, bump stops, springs, lower wishbones with the bushes and antiroll bar drop links. What a difference it made. The car felt like new again.

[MDG950]

Some more issues 😞 

1. The cruise control buttons now only work when they feel like it. I think I may have dislodged a plug on the back of the cc switch while trying to cure a rattle in the steering column. I think the only thing for it is to remove the airbag again and take a look (Not my favourite job in the world)
2. The road noise has been getting gradually louder and louder, researching this it sounds like it could just be the Goodyear eagle F1s coming close to their wear limit. Apparently they do get noisy when they don't have much life left in them. Also one of them has a nail in it so definitely time to change. I'm thinking Michelin Pilot Sport 4s 

On the plus side, since upgrading my phone to one with Android 11 I've had no trouble with android auto play back so at least I can drown out the noise while trying to keep my speed constant on the motorway 😀

 

[RAIDER32]

On 3/8/2021 at 8:43 PM, MDG950 said:

1. The road noise has been getting gradually louder and louder, researching this it sounds like it could just be the Goodyear eagle F1s coming close to their wear limit. Apparently they do get noisy when they don't have much life left in them. Also one of them has a nail in it so definitely time to change. I'm thinking Michelin Pilot Sport 4s 

What model F1's have you got?
When I got my car 18 months ago I soon replaced the knackered F1 Asymmetric 2's on the rear,
the front had Yokohama BluEarth tyres, they now live on the rear,
The F1 Asymmetric 5's had just come out and my garage managed to get me a pair and put them on the front,
Strangely the F1 Asymmetric 5's were cheaper than the older 2/3's despite being newer, quieter, more efficient and have rim guards.
Looking forward to the day I get all 4 replaced at once so I have a matching set,
I did ponder if I'd move away from Goodyear for another Premium brand,
I've just been comparing the F1 Asymmetric 5's & Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, 
the F1's seem to be better on everything in the charts for £30+ less.

I've started to hear an annoying noise coming from my door,
It sounds like the glass is rubbing the velvety material it slides in to in the frame,
Hopefully a good spring clean will sort it out.

[MDG950]

Mine are the F1 Asymmetric 5s. I agree on paper they do look the best value. Think I'm still going to try the Michelins if I can get a decent price on them.

[RAIDER32]

1 hour ago, MDG950 said:

Mine are the F1 Asymmetric 5s. I agree on paper they do look the best value. Think I'm still going to try the Michelins if I can get a decent price on them.

Looking forward to your review, Michelins do seem to be 'the' brand at the moment.
Yeh my intention is to get a discount by buying all 4 (for the first time ever),
Black Circles often do £25 off 4 Goodyear and £40 off 4 Michelins.

[MDG950]

Last week the cruise control issue has gone from intermittent to permanent. Luckily I had an opportunity to look at the cruise control issue on the weekend. Plugging into Forscan I had a DTC to do with mechanical failure of the steering angle sensor module. A check on the schematics showed the cruise control switch signals are routed through this module and onto the HS CAN network. Not much to go on but did show the issue was most likely in the steering wheel.

To my delight the airbag came off without too much of a fight this time. Clearly practice does make perfect. I removed the cruise switch, completely disassembled it and gave it all a good clean. There was some dirt on the contacts but nothing to 

Checking the resistances across the pins showed everything was in order (Annoyingly I didn't check before hand). Put it all back together and now seems to be working flawlessly.

Just tyres and a spring clean and hopefully I'll be back to happy motoring again.

[MDG950]

The cruise control issue does look to have been solved for now. Because I chose to modify my steering wheel to fit the cruise control switch my wheel didn't have the routing cut out for the switch harness to sit in. I didn't think about it, I just glued it in place. My theory is the glue started to give up which allowed the airbag unit to pull the plug out of the switch module due to it pinching the harness while the horn was being applied.

(Not my wheel, just a pic I found with the slot)

My steering wheel now has the slot cut in it and the harness tucked out of harms way.

 

New tyres are on but there is no change to the road noise problem. Nearside front wheel bearing is now the next suspect since I'm also getting the "wuh wuh wuh" noise which is far more pronounced while corning right. Not impressed at 66,000 miles but with the state of the roads I'm not surprised. I'm normally so careful looking out for them but in the dark driving home knackered after work I know I've caught a few.

 

In other news I'll be fitting a shiny Sync 3 into the wives Focus on the weekend. Should be nice and easy going from Sync 2 to 3. Wish me luck!

[RAIDER32]

3 hours ago, MDG950 said:

New tyres are on but there is no change to the road noise problem. Nearside front wheel bearing is now the next suspect since I'm also getting the "wuh wuh wuh" noise which is far more pronounced while corning right.

In other news I'll be fitting a shiny Sync 3 into the wives Focus on the weekend.
Should be nice and easy going from Sync 2 to 3. Wish me luck!

Sounds like you've nailed the noise issue now, hopefully not too expensive to sort.
I was convinced I had bearing issues on my 2009 Zetec S when driving on the motorway,
Kept hearing a humming noise over 40mph, garage said it was just a knackered tyre,
Happy it was just an old tyre, but replacing 2 tyres was still £220.
Biggest reason I'll probably stick with Goodyear is they have the lowest dB noise rating in Premium range.

I'm sure I'll upgrade my Sync 2 one day, seen several on forum get new kit from AliExpress and are very happy.
I just don't use the screen enough to spend a fortune on it, and I like my custom screen image.

[MDG950]

9 hours ago, RAIDER32 said:

I'm sure I'll upgrade my Sync 2 one day, seen several on forum get new kit from AliExpress and are very happy.
I just don't use the screen enough to spend a fortune on it, and I like my custom screen image.

We got this sync 3 for an absolute steal, £125 posted on eBay. Again the chap thought he was selling a sync 2 but the pictures showed a sync 3.

There's all sorts of customisations possible now for sync 3, I'm sure custom screens can be done already, FMods.net have detailed quite a few customisations, the downside of which is you need to open up your APIM and flash the firmware directly into the eMMC. Not for the faint hearted.

Just had a worn out front nearside wheel bearing diagnosed by the garage yesterday afternoon. Booked in for Friday. £200 seems a bit steep to me but if it means I can retain my hearing for a few more years I'll be happy.

[MDG950]

I finally got the wheel bearing replaced and it's just wonderful to drive again. No horrible droning noises anymore which makes me very happy. Although when it came back from the garage there was a rubbing noise coming from the front left where the work had been carried out, this turned into a horrible graunching noise when on the brakes.

I took the brakes on that corner apart and found the disc wouldn't spin freely through the pads. Reseating the brake disc onto the hub cured this. I also had to bend the splash guard away from the disc as this looked like it had been rubbing as well. Not sure it had been put back together with quite as much care as I would have done.

Now the car is back to its former glory I think I need some mods. I've got some LEDs to go behind the door reflectors and I'm thinking about retrofitting BLIS. Updates to come....

[MDG950]

Door reflectors lights next. I followed the same method as @Phil21185 did on his.

First step is getting the door cards off, this was difficult and required lots of force where it didn't seem welcome.

Then checking to make sure I could find the puddle light wiring from the door module

In my case the puddle light where connected to pins 8 and 6 of this plug on the door modules. On each side the wire colours where different though.

Then I popped the caps off from my LED festoon bulbs that I'd bought and soldered on some lengths of wire.

I wrapped those wires in Tesa tape (love this stuff!) back up to the door wiring loom. There is no other wires going to this part of the door so a few well placed cable ties where required to hold the new wiring in place.

I attached the cable ties to the inside of the door card but left enough length to allow the door card to sit on the floor without pulling the wiring.

Then I made the connections into the puddle light wiring. Soldering and heatshrinking the joints to avoid trouble later.

Next I fastened the LED into the reflector recess the same way Phil did using a cable tie at each end threaded through the plastic 'cage'

Testing revealed these festoon bulbs will only work one way around so I then took the whole thing apart again, swapped the wires as round on the bulb and then tested it without putting the door card back on this time. This fixed it and that evening I had two working door reflector LEDs.

Really happy with that, it's a fairly simple mod that really makes sense to do. Although with the car being so yellow it probably doesn't need anymore illumination to let others know it's there. Big thanks to @Phil21185 for the inspiration and instructions on this mod.

[MDG950]

The noise one the brakes is still present. Only at low speed and only when applied gently. It's a rotational noise, more of a loud groaning than anything else. Yesterday I jacked the car up, took the wheels off, refitted the wheel nuts (to hold the brake discs onto the hubs), started the car and put it into gear to spin the hubs.

The nearside front disc was wobbling.

Took the disc off to check the runout of the hub itself with the new wheel bearing and to say I was cross would be an understatement. I took a video to highlight the issue.

Although I'm no expert I'm fairly sure this is excessive. I'll be ringing the garage on Monday to see if they wouldn't mind awfully fitting the next wheel bearing a little more straight than the last.

[Phil21185]

On 5/3/2021 at 9:54 AM, MDG950 said:

Door reflectors lights next. I followed the same method as @Phil21185 did on his.

First step is getting the door cards off, this was difficult and required lots of force where it didn't seem welcome.

Then checking to make sure I could find the puddle light wiring from the door module

In my case the puddle light where connected to pins 8 and 6 of this plug on the door modules. On each side the wire colours where different though.

Then I popped the caps off from my LED festoon bulbs that I'd bought and soldered on some lengths of wire.

I wrapped those wires in Tesa tape (love this stuff!) back up to the door wiring loom. There is no other wires going to this part of the door so a few well placed cable ties where required to hold the new wiring in place.

I attached the cable ties to the inside of the door card but left enough length to allow the door card to sit on the floor without pulling the wiring.

Then I made the connections into the puddle light wiring. Soldering and heatshrinking the joints to avoid trouble later.

Next I fastened the LED into the reflector recess the same way Phil did using a cable tie at each end threaded through the plastic 'cage'

Testing revealed these festoon bulbs will only work one way around so I then took the whole thing apart again, swapped the wires as round on the bulb and then tested it without putting the door card back on this time. This fixed it and that evening I had two working door reflector LEDs.

Really happy with that, it's a fairly simple mod that really makes sense to do. Although with the car being so yellow it probably doesn't need anymore illumination to let others know it's there. Big thanks to @Phil21185 for the inspiration and instructions on this mod.

Hopped on for my ritual bi-annual visit (real life is such a pain!) and I'm really chuffed to know that some of the crap I wrote about 3 years ago is actually helpful to someone!

Nice job!

[Fsa23]

On 10/19/2020 at 9:07 PM, MDG950 said:

The headlight level sensor has gone again. Still intermittent but worse than before. I was able to replace the plug with the broken clip with a new one but the problem remains.

The issue is the headlight seem to gradually increase the angle of the beam I guess until it reaches a limit. Then the car throws an error and the lights are set to point at the floor. 9 times out of 10 the error then goes away and the lights either return to the correct level or go straight back up to pointing at the sky. At which point the cycle starts again. With the nights drawing in I decided I can't have my headlights going up and down of there own accord so I've disconnected the sensor. This puts the lights into a failsafe position pointing at the floor...Not ideal but it will have to do until I can get the sensor changed.

They are expensive, around £250 new or £80-90 used. Managed to find one for £45. Fingers crossed it works.

Hi I'm having the same issue where the plug clip is broken and the headlight points down time to time. Can you please let me know when you got the plug from our part number. 

Thanks

[MDG950]

On 2/9/2022 at 8:18 PM, Fsa23 said:

Hi I'm having the same issue where the plug clip is broken and the headlight points down time to time. Can you please let me know when you got the plug from our part number. 

Thanks

HI @Fsa23 Just PM'd you the details, but will repeat here for all. The part number on my plug is 1-967616-2 from TE connectivity. Nowhere seems to have stock of them but it looks like 1-967616-1 has the same coding and are available here: https://www.auto-click.co.uk/6-way/te-connectivity-6-way-automotive-connectors/1-967616-1

[Westmatix]

Well handy thread!

I've got 2012 st3 estate.  My driver's side scuff plate has gone (only middle part illuminated). I've taken it apart to the stage you pictured and 2 of the led's on the left are gone! I took apart in front room carefully and b&ggered if I can see them anywhere. It'll worked when I got car 2 years ago.

So... ..

-would this still be fixable somehow?

-Or is there a direct plug-in alternative to stupid money replacement original?

-how hard would it be to get small strip of led's and fit in broken unit, then reseal and connect to original ribbon connection?

Thanks. 

[MDG950]

Hi and welcome. Do you mean the LEDs have fallen off the white circuit board? In theory the LEDs could be replaced with a 12V LED strip. I resealed mine with strong thick double sided tape and it's all still working. There is a guy on the facebook groups who repairs them, I'd give that a go before paying ridiculous money for a replacement.

[MDG950]

BLIS or Blind Spot Information System or little LEDs in the corner of the wing mirrors that come on when there is something in your blind spot, upgrade next. This took a while to get the parts sourced and they were far more expensive than I'd hoped but most of that was my fault! Still I know that now! Here's a rundown of the work completed mistakes and all:

Checking the specification sheet showed most of the Focus range had BLIS available as an option so there is a good chance all (rather most) of the wiring would be present.

Further research revealed others have done this mod in the past but not much was documented.

The Mustang and F150 forums have shown it’s possible but can be quite expensive.

https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/step-by-step-guide-to-enabling-blind-spot-information-system-blis-and-cross-traffic-alert-cta.107623/

Studying the schematics, it looks like the BLIS led in the wing mirror is triggered by the door modules on receiving a command from the BCM over MSCAN. This is a bit different to the Mustangs which I believe have no door modules but should make the job a lot easier without having to try and shove extra wires through the door close conduits.

At the radar sensor end it looks like the sensors talk to the BCM on their own dedicated MS-CAN network and these would be the wires that really do need to be in place already otherwise it's going to be a horrible job.

 

At the BCM end, checking C2280B on the BCM for wires in pins 38,40,58,60 I was able to confirm these dedicated CAN lines are present at the BCM on the basis that this plug doesn't have any other MS-CAN lines going to it other than the ones for the BLIS sensors.

So where do these lines go? Well they took some tracking down. The 2015 schematics show a dedicated 6 pin plug that sits parallel to the larger parking sensor plug on the right hand side of the rear bumper. This is missing on my 2013 ST but is present on my wife’s 2015 titanium. The CAN lines are routed to the chunky parking sensor plug instead.

ST main parking sensor plug with the as yet unused CAN lines:

Parallel to the chunky plug was this misery mystery plug:

And the connections on my wives 2015 titanium with the 6 pin BLIS connector on the right:

More investigation revealed the mystery plug is a power supply plug to the BLIS radar modules and the dedicated CAN lines go to the main parking sensor plug. The facelift park assist system uses additional side sensors for the parallel park assist which I believe was never an option on the PFL. My BLIS CAN connection uses the positions in the chunky main parking sensor plug that these additional sensors use in the facelift cars hence the need to add the 6 pin plug to the FL.

This was confirmed by looking through the (seemingly) more accurate black and white electrical schematics.

Mulling all of this over for a few days I decided it all looks doable, so for £200 I bought this:

Which turned out to be wrong. But I only found out once I had bought new brackets (to fit the estate £63 per side!) and modified the wiring loom to fit my bumper connector and my parking sensors.

However I had much better luck at the other end of the car. On the schematics the LED is powered by the door modules via pins 9 and 10 on the mirror connector and happily pins 9 and 10 are present and wired up on my driver’s door mirror:

These wires go back to the door modules which means with a bit of reprogramming we'll be good to go.

I was able to get replacement mirror glass with the BLIS LED built in for £35 per side from https://www.wingmirrorman.co.uk/wing-mirror-glass/ford-wing-mirror-glass/ford-focus-wing-mirror-glass/ford-focus-2011-2018-wing-mirror-glass/ford-focus-estate-2011-2014-wing-mirror-glass

These have the heater element and the BLIS LED connections which the guys on the Mustang forums have identified as a JST 02R-JWPF-VSLE-S. To keep everything as factory as possible I added the wiring between the wing mirror door plug and the BLIS connector within the mirror housing, this was difficult since there is not much spare wire to work with inside the mirror assemblies.

Time to install the radar modules and modify the bumper loom to suit:

Finishing up the loom and fitting the new plugs:

With everything mounted it was time to program and test.....Doesn't work...DTCs – SODR/L lost communication with BCM and SODR/L Invalid data received from ABS module. The BLIS modules and wiring and new brackets I'd bought were all for the facelift focus.

Bugger.

Fine, I'll buy the PFL modules (£90 for the pair), went to fit them, they don't fit. The brackets and the electrical connectors are different....

Bugger bugger.

New brackets ordered, they've gone up £86 per side....

Bugger bugger bugger.

Changed the electrical connectors by cutting off the old ones from the bumper loom and splicing the new ones on in their place.

And the result was working BLIS!!!

I'll add a list of useful part numbers if anyone else would like to try their hand at this mod, but I think that's plenty to be going on with for now.