69 Plate Focus ST-Line - "Pre Collision Assist not available" and "See Manual" and loss of power during driving.

[MrFrisky]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could help.  I've had this car from new 18 months ago and it has a persistent intermittent fault.  I'll be driving it and then I'll get an alert 'See Manual' and then another one - 'Pre Collision Assist not Available'.  When this happens I lose a whole suite of what I think of as 'upper tier' functions.  The worst one is that the turbocharger seems to fail.  It leaves the car very short of power and extremely hard to accelerate.  I also lose the collision sensors and cruise control, the handling seems less taut although the braking is still OK. 

 

In order to reset the car I have to pull over, turn the engine off, climb out and lock it and leave it for several minutes.  Then the problem seems to go away.

 

It's a very serious fault and it tends to happen when the weather is warmer, and also most frequently when I'm accelerating in 2nd gear towards the middle of the rev range (3k-4.5k).  I do regular longer drives of 120 miles and it usually manifests itself at least once during that journey, but it also happens on short trips.

 

The dealership has been unable to replicate the fault or diagnose it successfully.

 

Can anyone shed any light on this?

 

Thanks in advance.

[unofix]

So the car is only 18 months old. You have way more patience than I would have. Take the car back to the dealership, park it on the forcourt and tell them they have a maximum of 3 attempts to sort the problem or you reject the vehicle as its not fit for purpose.

I know it would be difficult to do but try and video the problem when it happens. Maybe get yourself a GoPro or a cheap dash cam and set it up to always be recording the dashboard so you have proof.

At the end of the day you bought a new car and as such you are entilted to have it work full as it should.

[DaveT70]

Have they even tried updating the software?

I had a few issues similar to this when my 2019 was new, software updates sorted it.

Apparently 2.0 Ecoblues are suffering with injector faults, have they checked these are working correctly.

Some faults clear themselves immediately. Get yourself a cheap bluetooth (if you're android) or wifi (if you're IOS)  ELM327 dongle and the torque pro app, when the fault comes on immediately read and save the codes to show Ford when you take it in.

Recording is also a good idea.

PM me your VIN and I'll see what updates are available for your vehicle

[MrFrisky]

Thanks for both of your replies.

 

On 6/16/2021 at 8:33 AM, DaveT70 said:

Have they even tried updating the software?

I had a few issues similar to this when my 2019 was new, software updates sorted it.

Apparently 2.0 Ecoblues are suffering with injector faults, have they checked these are working correctly.

Some faults clear themselves immediately. Get yourself a cheap bluetooth (if you're android) or wifi (if you're IOS)  ELM327 dongle and the torque pro app, when the fault comes on immediately read and save the codes to show Ford when you take it in.

Recording is also a good idea.

PM me your VIN and I'll see what updates are available for your vehicle

I don't know if they have tried updating the software.  They ought to have done but you can't be sure.

It's a 1.5 180PS, so I don't think it's injector faults.

I'm not familiar with any of the stuff you're referring to but I'll take a look at it and try to figure out what is involved with this dongle.

I will send over the VIN, thanks.

On 6/15/2021 at 4:44 PM, unofix said:

So the car is only 18 months old. You have way more patience than I would have. Take the car back to the dealership, park it on the forcourt and tell them they have a maximum of 3 attempts to sort the problem or you reject the vehicle as its not fit for purpose.

I know it would be difficult to do but try and video the problem when it happens. Maybe get yourself a GoPro or a cheap dash cam and set it up to always be recording the dashboard so you have proof.

At the end of the day you bought a new car and as such you are entilted to have it work full as it should.

I am reliant on it every day and if I'm without it, it's a nuisance. However the problem disappears when the car's switched off and not used for 5 minutes, so I have been living with it because it's so intermittent.

[Tizer]

As well as the information already provided it is a good idea to make sure that Connectivity Settings are enabled via your Sync Screen. Ford do over the air updates to the Telematics Control Unit of these cars without you realising that they are happening. Mine has had about 4 updates in the last 2 years.

I'm not saying it will solve your problem, but it may help.

These updates are not the same as Wi-Fi updates and you do not need to have this setting switched on to get the TCU Updates.

[unofix]

On 6/18/2021 at 9:56 AM, MrFrisky said:

I am reliant on it every day and if I'm without it, it's a nuisance.

I'm quite sure you are reliant on your car like most of us here on this forum, but is there a reason why the garage won't give you a courtesy car ? In the last 30 years I don't think I have ever left a car with a main dealer and not been given a courtesy car or at least asked if I would like one.

[Guy Heaton]

Do you have ford breakdown?  When I had the EML on mine and it wasn't driveable the ford breakdown, actually the AA, gave me a car, took mine to the dealer and that was that. I kept the courtesy car until mine was fixed.

The dealer had to pay for the hire but it wasn't supplied by them.  They didn't have any cars to give me.

 

[MrFrisky]

13 hours ago, unofix said:

I'm quite sure you are reliant on your car like most of us here on this forum, but is there a reason why the garage won't give you a courtesy car ? In the last 30 years I don't think I have ever left a car with a main dealer and not been given a courtesy or at least asked if I would like one.

They're just difficult about it.  I do school runs with 3:30pm and 12:45pm pickups, and the dealer wants the car there early, I've got to get two kids out of the house extra early in order to stand around at the dealership for at least 20 minutes, it's at least a 20-minute drive through heavy traffic in to the town to get to the dealership, they're never ready, the courtesy car always needs petrol, then the child seats need to be swapped over, then I'm late for school drop off.

THEN I get to repeat the whole saga at the end of the day with two tired hungry grumpy young children, at least one of whom will find a way to fall over or urgently need the toilet.

Then I'll be told they haven't managed to find the fault, because the car's probably sat on the forecourt for 8 hours, apart from the time when a technician fired it up with the diagnostics software in and ran it for 20 minutes.

The whole experience is so tiresome and unpleasant that I've been actively avoiding the dealership for as long as I can.  Sadly it's reached the point where I can't really ignore it any longer.

[Dennis123]

Hi, is there a solution for above problem?

[blindsay]

Its not any help but just to let you know, my 1.5 182 has the exact same issue. Infact that’s how I ended up here, because I’m sick of it doing it.

[unofix]

Hello Ben, I don't think you will get an answer. The OP @MrFrisky had a car that was under warranty but couldn't be bothererd to get it sorted and has not been back to check for answers since 19th June 2021 - so I guess the problem wasn't that big of a deal.

Then along comes @Dennis123asking if there is an answer and hasn't checked back to see if there are any replies since 7th Oct 2021 - so again I can only assume it's not that big of an issue.

If you do ever find the answer maybe you could be the one to help others and post the solution ?

[dborg]

@MrFrisky did you find the solution to this? As lately my car started having the same issues. Thanks

[unofix]

2 hours ago, dborg said:

As lately my car started having the same issues.

What issues ??????

Have you read the posts above, especially my previous post 2 years ago dated 10th November 2021.

[DaveT70]

16 hours ago, dborg said:

@MrFrisky did you find the solution to this? As lately my car started having the same issues. Thanks

If you're an early MK4 get all the software updated