Identical Electrical Failure whilst driving Ford Focus Titanium (62 Plate) and a Peugeot 207 (07 Plate)

[bcs1606]

I've had a series of issues over the last 8 months across two different cars, the first being a '07 plate Peugeot 207 and the latter being a '62 plate Ford Focus (Titanium). The reason I'm mentioning the Peugeot is because the exact same faults have now occurred on both vehicles.

Last Autumn, I noticed my Peugeot ('07 plate) struggling to start, the next morning I went to start the car and it did nothing. I called the AA and their mechanic was slightly baffled as to what was wrong, he said everything appeared fine with the battery and if anything it would be the alternator. Anyway I had the alternator replaced and the car worked fine again (could be completely unrelated but thought I would include it just in case). However, skip to a few months later and the car began to randomly flash the ABS light at me as I was driving, just for a few seconds before the light turned back off again and the car was fine. One morning on the way to work the ABS light came on but stayed on, seconds later the engine management light came on, seconds after that the power steering failed followed by all gauges failing. The headlights on the car remained on and I was able to drive the car (with difficulty) to my place of work just a few hundred meters down the road. After finishing my shift I went to try and turn my car on but it wouldn't let me, it flashed up numerous different warnings and my mechanic had to come and recover the car. Both my mechanic and an auto-electrician examined the electrics for a few days and could not find what was causing the electrics to play up (the auto-electrician even sent all of his findings to Peugeot who were also completely baffled and had no idea what was causing it). Anyways, the mechanic was able to bypass something on the car electrics, just so that he could jump start the car and enable him to move it around the yard. Eventually it was decided the car was not worth the work or money and we decided to move forward with scrapping it. The mechanic said something about the computers within the car were not communicating and essentially none of the electrics were functioning as they should.

Cut forward to a week ago, I purchased a '62 plate Ford Focus (Titanium). I was unable to view the car before buying it due to current UK Lockdown restrictions but I was in desperate need of a vehicle, having not had one for the past six weeks and struggling to arrange transport to and from work. I finally found a dealer with some really great reviews and I really liked the car from what I had seen on their website. The car was delivered to me last Friday and I was really happy with the condition of the car when it arrived, it drove beautifully and I was completely relieved. However today on the way to work, I jumped in my car and the car started perfectly, as I pulled off of my drive I noticed the steering briefly felt a bit stiff (for at most 2 seconds), I continued driving for about three minutes and the car was fine. Then all of a sudden as I was turning a corner I felt the power steering go, again just for a few seconds, I drove probably another 400 meters and, again as I turned the corner, I felt the power steering go before returning back to normal again. I drove for about another 30 seconds and then just as happened on the Peugeot, the ABS and engine management lights came on, the Power steering went, the Gauges all failed and the Hill Start assist notified me it was not working. I managed to get the car off of the main road and into a little side street (I must also add the engine did not cut out at any point during these failures) and once in a safe place I turned the push start ignition off. After a few seconds I attempted to restart the car, it tried but could not start, after waiting for a couple of minutes I retried, but again nothing. At this point I unplugged my dash cam from the cigarette lighter, waited for a few minutes and tried starting the car, with next to no struggle the car started perfectly with no warning lights on and power steering had returned. The trip computers figures had reset but other than that, all was fine. This made me consider the possibility of the dash cam being the culprit.

This dashcam was hardwired into my Peugeot for about a month prior to any electrical faults occurring. I haven't had time to hardwire it into my Focus as of yet and so have just had it plugged into the cigarette lighter so that I can use it. I have checked some forums and have noticed a few people having issues with dashcams and car electrics but nothing of the sort that I have experienced. It could just be a complete coincidence that the car started when I removed the dashcam, but it seems unlikely that two different cars, different makes and models would have the exact same electrical faults with the only thing linking them (that I have done) being the same dashcam that I transferred from my old car to my new one. I managed to get to and from work fine with the car functioning as normal and so I am relieved that so far whatever killed my Peugeot hasn't managed to do the same to my Ford. I am really concerned as to what is causing these issues. I deep-down hope it is the dashcam and not something more serious but I was wondering if anyone knew anything about these faults and what could be causing them, its been a stressful few months of car problems and just when I thought it was over it seems to have just crept back up again.

I'll include some key information that may be of use (including some of the extra electrics the cars have installed) and apologies for the length of my query but as I say, its been a long 8 months.

Peugeot 207 (07 plate) Turbo Diesel 1.6 (114,000 miles, 2 previous owners)
Had an aftermarket radio installed but no issues for a year and a half. Had the dash cam installed and no issues for about a month to two months
Had rear parking sensors installed which I believe were factory fitted.
The Peugeot in the months leading up its death also had a problem that my mechanic wasn't sure about. Essentially, randomly every couple of weeks the car would suddenly jolt forwards either when travelling along at speed but also sometimes it would make a very violent jolt when setting off (as if I had stalled it but I hadn't) the electrics would go funny when it did it whilst setting off but returned to normal seconds after. When it jolted at speed, sometimes it would just do the one jolt forward but sometimes it would do it repeatedly throughout the journey, was a real pain but it happened so infrequently that when my mechanic checked it, it didn't do it, and so he couldn't diagnose it. I considered it could be something I was doing but then it did it one day and all I was literally doing was pressing down on the accelerator to maintain speed on a dual carriageway. My Dad did some research into the issue and whilst he found little on it, he did find a few posts that linked the issue to the ECU. The issue was never solved and then eventually the car suffered electrical failure.

Ford Focus Titanium Trim (62 plate) TDCI 1.6 (74,000 miles, 5 previous owners)
No aftermarket tech installed apart from the dashcam that was plugged into the cigarette lighter (I usually unplug the camera from the cigarette lighter when I leave my car as otherwise the car keeps providing it with power, however yesterday I left it plugged in for around 7 hours, but the car still started fine when I realised).
The car has econetic technology, however the button that initiates stop start technology does not switch on when pressed (I've googled this and some potential causes include the battery not having enough power to ensure the car will restart when it switches itself off). It also has cruise control and speed limiter controls on the steering wheel that don't seem to respond when pressed (first considered it was just me being stupid and not knowing how to work it as all other steering wheel controls work, but a week in and I still cant seem to figure it out so any advice on that would be great). Has front and rear parking sensors installed, with auto park technology which switches on but so far haven't had the need to use it.

Dashcam is a Nextbase 312GW

Thanks for taking the time to read, apologies for the length of the post but thought id include as much info as I possibly could, really would like to solve the issue before I potentially lose another car. If you couldn't tell from my descriptions I'm not a particularly car savvy person so apologies if any details are lacking. Thanks very much.