Ford Focus 1.6 TDCi long cranking

[Vladek]

Hi,

My 2011 Ford Focus mk 2.5 1.6 TDCi 110HP suddenly takes a lot of time to start which is made even worse if the car has been parked overnight. It used to start instantly without even hearing the starter motor trying to turn the engine. The problem showed up last week and it seems like it gets worse over time. I changed the battery as it was 5 years old and had 12.4V. About 1000km ago I had the fuel filter, along with an oil and filters changed and also the timing belt, but I didn't notice any strange behaviour immediately after.

As far as I understand glowplugs are not used unless the car is started in very cold weather so they shouldn't affect the starting.

The car has no DTCs and also runs and drives perfectly fine (no rough idle, no power loss, no smoke, no strange fuel consumption).

If I turn it off and start the engine again it starts a little better, but still far from how it started 2 weeks ago.

 I made a video showing the issue. I would be really grateful if someone could give me an opinion about what could have gone wrong. Thank you!

 

[TomsFocus]

Glowplugs are used at every start for emissions on modern common rail diesels, the light doesn't actually indicate that they're on.   They shouldn't be needed to start at 12c though.

I wonder if the starter motor is just starting to get weak?  Alternative would be a very minor fuel leak that's allowing some of the fuel to drain back to the tank.  Or possibly the crank sensor.

Have you checked for DTCs with Forscan or just a generic OBD2 reader?

[Vladek]

I was using a generic OBD2 reader, but I just checked using Forscan and there are still no DTCs. Thanks for the tips. Could it also be caused by bad fuel? Or failing high pressure pump?

[TomsFocus]

High pressure pump is definitely a possibility but it's not that common on these so I'd want to rule out everything else first.

Contaminated fuel maybe...there is a water drain on the fuel filter so you could try draining a bit to check there's no water in there.  

[Vladek]

Will draining the filter cause air to get in the system? Or I can safely do so without having to prime the system afterwards.

[Vladek]

UPDATE: I performed another code reading and I still got no DTCs. However after using Torque's Vehicle Test it came up with the error in the photo. Seeing this error I recalled that I've seen this error as a DTC with a fault code about 2 months ago during a routine check (it was shown as intermitent, not permanent). It makes sense to me that a bad O2 reading can cause trouble starting up. Am I right?

 

[Vladek]

UPDATE2: I did a live data reading using Forscan and I noticed that the fuel rail temperature sensor shows 41 degrees (before I start the engine) after the car stayed unused for 5 days and the temperatures were up to 10 degrees during the day and as low as 0 at night. Is that right? Does it have some sort of preheating or is it faulty?

[Tizer]

7 hours ago, Vladek said:

UPDATE2: I did a live data reading using Forscan and I noticed that the fuel rail temperature sensor shows 41 degrees (before I start the engine) after the car stayed unused for 5 days and the temperatures were up to 10 degrees during the day and as low as 0 at night. Is that right? Does it have some sort of preheating or is it faulty?

I think that FORScan has been calibrated incorrectly for that PID for this car. When I had the same car as you it always showed the Fuel Temperature about 30 C more than it was both before starting the car and when running.

As far as I know the Temperature Sensor is in the Return Line to the tank within the Engine Bay and if there is a Fuel Heater it is part of the Filter with the Electrical connection at the base.

If there was a Heater it would not cause the temperature to read too high before starting.

[Vladek]

Problem solved! After a WOT acceleration in the 3rd gear at around 3500 rpm, I got engine malfunction and complete power loss. I had code P2290 Injector Control Pressure Too Low and the car went in limp mode. Replaced the fuel filter at Ford as I was sure there must be something wrong over there and all the problems went away. Car fires up instantly regardless if the engine is cold or hot, no more errors when accelerating hard. Thank you all for the suggestions!