Kuga 1.5 diesel, juddering hesatating, no power

[Don't Buy Ford]

I have had my Kuga since July 2019, within a few weeks it started to judder, softly at first then progressively worse. On one occasion with my wife aboard, it was shaking so badly, she was screaming for me to stop the car as she was becoming frightened of the experience................... The car judders, when it does it will not accelerate, changing gears sometimes stops the juddering, which usually starts between 40 and 50 mph. One time I was overtaking on a long straight road, just as I drew level with the car I was overtaking, the juddering started and Had to drop down to third to stop the judder and abort the overtake. Other times I can put my foot down and nothing happens for a second or so. I have had the car in many times ti the dealer, but no error codes show up and nothing is done to correct the fault. Apparently Ford technical have even issued a bulliting mentioning all of the problems I have encountered and guess what they remedy was "Take no action" 

They have acknowledged the problem but chosen to ignore it. Almost eight weeks ago, the juddering started (particularly bad episode), I kept trying to accelerate, it wouldn't. Then a smell appeared in the car - something was getting hot. A warning came up on the dash, exhaust over heating, pull over and allow to cool. I kept going, the engine management light came on now, then a service message. I was within sight of home so kept going. I made it home, called ford assist, the AA came down plugged in and found two error codes, one exhaust sensor and an unknown code. I called my Ford dealer, who said bring it straight in. I did, with the AA van following just in case. They had the car for a week, during which it was serviced (nothing else, 1st service, so basically an oil change.

I received the car back - running better than ever. Three days ago it all started again (just under eight weeks of good running). I called my dealer and asked what exactly they had done to correct the faults from last time - nothing only reset the service light and changed the oil!!!

TODAY, juddering really bad, the hot smell once again appeared and then the "exhaust hot" warning, "service warning" and lastly the "engine management light" again.............and Ford say their is no issue?  

[MasterTechTip]

Do you do small journeys in your Kuga? I think I know what's causing this but need to confirm how you drive the vehicle?

What's your daily and weekly milage like if you don't mind me asking?

[Don't Buy Ford]

Hi,

I do around 700 a year mainly around town after a short country drive. The temperature always reaches temperature, I even make extra miles sometimes to make sure it does reach temperature. 

Any ideas would be gratefully received - Ford don't seem to have a clue. Just had the AA guy down again and the same code popped up (P200c), which is over temperature in the particulate filter.

The last time it happened they reset the service light and changed the oil (it was service time), that's all they did - now it's back again

[Don't Buy Ford]

That should have read 7000 year😱

[Don't Buy Ford]

After the weekend and the car playing up again, major shaking/juddering, the usual signs flashed up on the dash... exhaust overheating, pull over.........service needed........engine management light on. I called Ford assist to get the AA down to check the car as the management light was showing. Guy arrived, plugged in and told me the error code was P200c.......exhaust particulate filter over heating.  He asked if I wanted the system reset, I said no as it would erase the error code, he agreed and it was left as it was before he arrived. He asked if I was taking it to the garage to get sorted. I said tomorrow (1st September) as it was bank holiday.

Today I took the car to the Ford dealer to get fixed. I noticed on the drive that the  management light had gone!!!  Upon arriving, I told the dealer this, they explained that without codes they couldn't do anything (been here before many times). They said they would plug it in and see what happens.............sure enough no codes??? They were there yesterday and so was management light.

I called ford assist to get the engineers report from his visit to check the car..............sure enough he had left if as it was and had not reset the system, everything should still be there.

WOW, another problem, now the car is deleting it's own information. I informed the dealer about the engineer report, they were puzzled too. 

Meanwhile as a result of the garage getting no error codes to report, I cannot get a hire car from Ford assist.

The whole thing is a farce of the greatest magnitude. If you have an intermittent problem which does not throw up an error code, no-one believes you. Because dealerships only get paid by Ford to correct known faults, no-one is looking into unknown problems, such as mine............... DON'T BUY FORD

[Kevin#95]

You should buy an odb2 code reader to check if the p200c code is present before taking it into the dealer. And take a picture of the code to show them.

P200c say the dpf is overheating. So I guess the temp sensors are working because it picks up a fault and you can smell burning. I am not an expert in this area  but I think the dpf should do a regeneration to remove soot. If you are doing lots of short runs maybe the regeneration doesn't fully complete and problems follow from this. A long drive on the motorway might fix this if this is the cause of the problem.

Your dealer's response is very poor. 

[Kevin#95]

Last time they serviced it what else was changed. If anything else was changed it might be related to the problem. Air filter, etc.

[MasterTechTip]

Okay so unfortunately it's the short journeys that are the problem here, I have a customer that has the exact the same issue and does 6000 miles a year. This is not enough for a diesel!

What's happening is and bare with me here, the way the 1.5 diesels regenerate the DPF is they squirt extra diesel on the exhaust stroke of the engine to push fuel into the exhaust system and that makes it hot enough to burn off the soot etc in the DPF. They do this because they don't have a Vaporiser glow plug like the 2.0 diesels do (why I don't know). Now if you do short journeys like in your case what happens is most of this extra diesel that is being injected isn't going into your exhaust its seeping past your piston rings and into your oil causing oil dilution. This in turn makes your oil level higher than the maximum (I bet if you check your dipstick now it's over the max mark). This then forces the oil up past your piston rings due to the excess pressure being built up because of high oil level and then in turn being forced down your exhaust. This then causes the Cat and DPF to become too hot and cause this juddering/ lack of power followed by eventually cutting out altogether. (Hope you got all that). 

Now the bad part is this is a characteristic of the engine and can not be altered. The only way to stop this is to take your car on longer runs. I appreciate this isn't all that helpful and you have no idea when it needs to go on longer runs. 

I hope this info helps... Not all Ford dealers are in the know about this.

[TomsFocus]

11 hours ago, MasterTechTip said:

Okay so unfortunately it's the short journeys that are the problem here, I have a customer that has the exact the same issue and does 6000 miles a year. This is not enough for a diesel!

What's happening is and bare with me here, the way the 1.5 diesels regenerate the DPF is they squirt extra diesel on the exhaust stroke of the engine to push fuel into the exhaust system and that makes it hot enough to burn off the soot etc in the DPF. They do this because they don't have a Vaporiser glow plug like the 2.0 diesels do (why I don't know). Now if you do short journeys like in your case what happens is most of this extra diesel that is being injected isn't going into your exhaust its seeping past your piston rings and into your oil causing oil dilution. This in turn makes your oil level higher than the maximum (I bet if you check your dipstick now it's over the max mark). This then forces the oil up past your piston rings due to the excess pressure being built up because of high oil level and then in turn being forced down your exhaust. This then causes the Cat and DPF to become too hot and cause this juddering/ lack of power followed by eventually cutting out altogether. (Hope you got all that). 

Now the bad part is this is a characteristic of the engine and can not be altered. The only way to stop this is to take your car on longer runs. I appreciate this isn't all that helpful and you have no idea when it needs to go on longer runs. 

I hope this info helps... Not all Ford dealers are in the know about this.

Is there no PCM update for these yet?  There were oil dilution FSA's for other cars with the 1.5 TDCi engine.

Post injection regen has been used on small diesels for years and works fine on less than 6k in my experience, it's more about how it's used than the overall mileage.  Even the 2.0 TDI VAGs use it. A vaporiser is an unnecessary extra if you can mount the DPF close enough to the engine.  I do know how to 'use' a DPF equipped diesel though, can spot regens easily and if it fails more than 4 in a row I'll take it out for a specific regen drive.  4 in a row sounds bad, but for some reason it always tries to start on a 2 mile trip to the local retail park!  

[Don't Buy Ford]

Very interesting, thanks guys. I have been wondering about the DPF. As I bought the car from new, it was fine at first, but as the months crept on, the issue slowly crept in, getting worse all the time. So I was thinking only last evening "is the DPF blocked and partially clearing occasionally - usually when we are running in top gear and on a stright run with no gear changes (should be a constant flow through the DPF.

I will run this by the dealer this morning, then comes the new issue of  the car deleting it's dash engine management (warning) light) and associated codes, maybe it's a relative of KITT in Knight Rider and decides for itself😂

I will let you know  what the dealer has to say - Ford management are supposed to be calling me on 3rd

Thanks guys

[Don't Buy Ford]

On the PCM front, when the car was in 9 weeks ago, the dealer said that all the software was up to date. I will quiz him again when I  speak to him this morning, just waiting for the call  back

Cheers

[MasterTechTip]

9 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Is there no PCM update for these yet?  There were oil dilution FSA's for other cars with the 1.5 TDCi engine.

Post injection regen has been used on small diesels for years and works fine on less than 6k in my experience, it's more about how it's used than the overall mileage.  Even the 2.0 TDI VAGs use it. A vaporiser is an unnecessary extra if you can mount the DPF close enough to the engine.  I do know how to 'use' a DPF equipped diesel though, can spot regens easily and if it fails more than 4 in a row I'll take it out for a specific regen drive.  4 in a row sounds bad, but for some reason it always tries to start on a 2 mile trip to the local retail park!  

Yeah there's been a few updates but they haven't really fixed it 😂 I think they've messed it up and can't get it right on these 1.5s, it's a simple system really but who knows? If I ever meet the engineer I'll question him! 

And none of the newer Ford diesels like small journeys anymore literally kills them slowly

[iantt]

16 minutes ago, MasterTechTip said:

Yeah there's been a few updates but they haven't really fixed it 😂 I think they've messed it up and can't get it right on these 1.5s, it's a simple system really but who knows? If I ever meet the engineer I'll question him! 

And none of the newer Ford diesels like small journeys anymore literally kills them slowly

That's why the 1.5 tdci has lower service intervals than the petrols on the whole. 

My Mondeo 2018  2.0tdci seems ok with short journeys to work and back and no vaporiser that I'm aware of. 

[MasterTechTip]

3 hours ago, iantt said:

That's why the 1.5 tdci has lower service intervals than the petrols on the whole. 

My Mondeo 2018  2.0tdci seems ok with short journeys to work and back and no vaporiser that I'm aware of. 

Can't say I've seen a Mondeo diesel that does low milage 😂 I have Mk5 2.0tdci myself and do about 20k a year. They do have vaporisers, it sits right at the top of the cat next to the gearbox 

[iantt]

I've never looked to be fair. It copes with 14 mile journeys to work and back so that must be just sufficient. I probably thought there wasn't one because there was no mention of vaporiser in etis under engine controls. But I see the wiring diagram does show it 

[MasterTechTip]

28 minutes ago, iantt said:

I've never looked to be fair. It copes with 14 mile journeys to work and back so that must be just sufficient. I probably thought there wasn't one because there was no mention of vaporiser in etis under engine controls. But I see the wiring diagram does show it 

That's Etis for you, helpful as always! 😂

[pragmatix]

On 9/2/2020 at 9:35 AM, Don't Buy Ford said:

 

I will run this by the dealer this morning, then comes the new issue of  the car deleting it's dash engine management (warning) light) and associated codes, maybe it's a relative of KITT in Knight Rider and decides for itself😂

Thanks guys

Lots of codes and warnings reset when the ignition is turned of, so I doubt that it is a fault, codes need to be read before switching off.

[Don't Buy Ford]

The dealer has now recovered a/some codes (they never say) and is "testing" the car. They need to take the car on a 45 minute test run to get data to run by Ford technical.............all sounds to me like they are burning off soot in the DPF, I'll probably get a call later saying all fixed 🤐

Nice to see that people have knowledge of this problem and are wiiling to cast an insight - it all helps when I'm talking to  the dealer, I will keep you up to date with progress

Thanks

[Don't Buy Ford]

Called Ford Customer services yesterday, they passed me on, it seems my case has been escalated. I spoke to a lady who listened well and seemed very concerned that the dealership were not giving me any information at all, when I called to ask what was going on with my car. I explained about the "no codes, nothing we can do syndrome" and , Ford tech don't not want to know - tying the dealers hands in what they can do. They will not investigate without Ford say so - it costs them money.

The lady was going to contact the dealership and ask what was going on 🤔

Time will tell if she had any effect

[Don't Buy Ford]

Latest: The car was taken for a 40 minute drive yesterday. Apparently the fitter thinks hr has found something, he was to upload the data and wait to see what Ford say😐

Meanwhile some extra info on the equivalent on Ford assist. Very good scheme, the last time these problems occurred and were diagnosed by the AA guy, I drove the car to the dealership with the AA van following - just in case. This concluded by my replacement car arriving the next day - GREAT. Now an issue even the dealership didn't know. This this after the diagnoses, The AA guy asked if he should follow me to the dealership, as it was a bank holiday, |I mentioned that no-one would be there and so I would drive there the next day (MISTAKE). The next day I drove to the dealership and was driven home, great so far. I called Ford assist concerning the replacement car..........nothing yet. As I had driven the car into the dealership, with no AA escort. I did not qualify for a replacement car. The only way I could  get a car through them was for the dealership to actually come up with error codes from the car, so I had to wait until the dealership could look into my car and find codes, before I could get a car.

It was finally picked up, great, same colour and model, only it was petrol - 1.5 eco.  After running this for a week I can report the mpg. On my 1.5 diesel I usually (when it was working) got between 55 and 57 mpg. The petrol 1.5 eco comes in around 38 mpg - heck of a difference, so diesel is around 50% more economical than a petrol 🤔

[Guy Heaton]

So at 7000 miles a year, and the mpgs you've put, you will use 125 gallons of diesel and 184 gallons of petrol.

Just taking figures for my area, petrol is £1.06 and diesel is £1.18, so £195 for petrol and £147 for diesel, not a huge difference over a year.  The smaller the mileage the less advantage the diesel mpg gives you.

Given that the 1.5 diesel is known not to like these short journeys I'd be tempted to move to petrol.  I did with the Focus, I had been driving diesels for years but my mileage was going down to around 9k and will be even less now as I wont be back in the office full time again.  I do prefer the lowdown torque of diesel but not the issues that come with low mileages.

[Don't Buy Ford]

I just placed the mpg mileage down as a guide for people, we are ding the trips as my diesel and noticed the obvious difference.

MEANWHILE; Ford have looked at the data from the laptop hooked up to my car whilst on it's 40 minute test run....... it showed a temperature sensor which at times showed a negative temperature........ Ford want the dealership to locate a sensor from another Kuga of similar age, swap the sensors and go for another test run?? Would have thought replacing the sensor would have been a quicker and cheaper option for them, but hey it's Ford saying this.

Have to wait and see now. I'm curious, if the sensor is there solely to place a warning light on the dash about it's temperature, then it can only be the result of a fault, which as yet has not been found by Ford. 🙄

[Don't Buy Ford]

Latest............ the DPF has been working correctly. The exhaust sensor from the donor vehicles was the wrong one, so Ford have decided to place a new sensor in. Apparently the sensor does a bit more than flash a light up on the dashboard, so fingers crossed. 😱

[Don't Buy Ford]

Tuesday 15th September: Ford called me to check if I had heard from the garage, No I hadn't. I also mentioned that I had decided to reject the car at this point. Although it is outside the cars twelve month warranty for such a procedure, the faults were all declared within the twelve month warranty period and have not been fixed, so I was on solid ground.

The dealership called straight afterwards to inform me that  the car was currently out on another run - The manager was taking it this time. He would be back soon and I could pick up the car. Doing so would not invalidate my rejection claim, The car was fixed (they say that every time) and the hire car had to go back.

So here I am awaiting on the dealership to get the paperwork (mechanic's reports etc) and get them off to Ford...............wait and see😪

Meanwhile I have been talking to other Kuga drivers encountered when shopping, no one reported any faults with their car and they were very happy with them. One chap had a sync 3 issue, but that was sorted out with and update - looks like I was really unlucky getting my car.😫

[Mark M]

If you're considering swapping to a 1.5 petrol version, stay away from the 182hp one. We had one from new and we rejected it due to needing a 3rd engine in 8000 miles. MPG was consistently between 18mpg and 22mpg. 24mpg could pop up on a very long, slow drive if you were lucky.

Looking at various groups and forums it looks like the 150hp and 120hp don't seem to have this problem though. But the 2ltr Diesel we took instead has been just sublime so far.