Hope you can help guys, problem started today. Every time I go on any road with an incline, the car does not rev, but actually slows down no matter what I try. The engine light came on earlier, called out the AA. He said that there looks to be an engine coolant leak near the engine, and cleared the code, but 10mins into my 2hr drive home, it was almost like it was in limp mode, where the car started slowing down on every incline going, but was fine on straights and downhills. Does anyone know what could be causing this problem, apart from the coolant leak?

Spoke to the AA man, he said to get the engine coolant leak fixed, other issue is the car has a lean fuel to air mixture, that needs to be investigated?

You need to get the actual code that has been stored and come back. A coolant leak won't cause an engine management light by itself (unless its spilled onto a load of electrics).

We recommend Forscan on a laptop coupled with a modified Elm327 cable (about £15) which is capable of reading Ford specific codes.

Having said all that if all you're going to do is find a code, come here so we tell you whats wrong, then take your car to a garage to be fixed, you may as well just take it to the garage now and let them deal with it.

I suppose we'll just guess whether you have a petrol or diesel lol.

I do apologise, it’s petrol, 1.6 Zetec, post facelift edition. I will be going to a garage, but wondered if it’s an expensive fix or a simple one. He cleared the code yesterday, and has not appeared with driving around, but the car doesn’t want to go past around 2k revs, it’s like it’s being held back somehow, does lose speed uphills, any incline at all. I did look on other posts, but not much mention of this specific problem. 

Anyone know what can cause power loss on inclines, and now getting the reduced speed on straights, the revs do not go much past 2k, no matter what I try, it feels like the car is holding back. Not seen this issue for 1.6 petrol

1 hour ago, DanceMB said:

Anyone know what can cause power loss on inclines, and now getting the reduced speed on straights, the revs do not go much past 2k, no matter what I try, it feels like the car is holding back. Not seen this issue for 1.6 petrol

this forum is non functional with IE11 after the upgrades in the last week.... shame, IE11 collects 10 time less spyware than the clever new broswers...

 

a limp mode is there to TRY and protect the car but not leave you stranded.... (the idea is to balance your safety vs wrecking the car).  Thus the idea is to get to a safe place and get it fixed ASAP, before damaging something irrevocably  It has never meant carry on driving.

The data you gave or were given by the AA is not helping.  Did the coolant need to be refilled?   if it was low, he topped it up and at some point the fault came back he should not have encouraged you to continue.  If it seemed OK and he could see a minor reason for a small leak it might just be acceptable.  But if you rang back to say it’s in limp mode and or lights came back on the dash they shouldn't let you drive off and should have recovered the vehicle.

as we have no idea whats wrong , its highly unlikely anyone here can help

coolant leaks are normal as cars get old, a lack of coolant can easily lead to overheating (which may not show up to the driver - the gauge can stop getting hot as too little water to help it operate correctly - the interior heater may stop getting warm as too little water etc.)  once everything gets a bit hot, the oil can easily breakdown and the engine will destroy itself quickly.  Replacing an engine on a 3k car is not really cost effective.....    

When he came to check the car, the coolant was still quite high up the tank, but I do always check these before longish drives. He checked all of the things he could, and the light has not come back on again since Saturday. Strange thing is I drove this evening, and it drove without power loss, it’s like nothing was wrong. Booked into the garage for tomorrow, fix the leak and then at the same time, find out the cause of the power loss. Hopefully I get the car back by the end of the week as I need to drive people around for Xmas week

17 hours ago, Botus said:

this forum is non functional with IE11 after the upgrades in the last week.... shame, IE11 collects 10 time less spyware than the clever new broswers...

Works ok on Firefox which has spyware blocking built-in.

firefox was doing my head in yesterday...   

83 had broken spell check, 84 signed of as final, but not yet released on normal updates path has it working again.

even so, with very tight don't spy settings, both Chrome (google's spy trash browser - that even microsoft adopted with "new" Edge) or Firefox will collect 100 meg of spy trash within 2 mins of light surfing on most sites.

IE11 takes a week to collect that much trash about you

Ccleaner is your friend - google is the devil 

Day 1 in the garage, coolant issue should be fixed tomorrow, needs new expansion tank and flange as well, hopefully the power loss issue will not reappear, even though I mentioned the lean issue. Will find out tomorrow if they have found the answer, fingers crossed!

coolant bottle is very common

did u ever have the noisy engine fan running frequently?   Some had a strange thermostat with a heater element that goes wrong (when that's popped the engine fan runs almost 100% of the time)