Hello, I wonder if anyone could advise me, I know a middle aged lady who is disabled with Crohn's disease and has a Ford Fiesta Zetec 1.4 Mk7 petrol. She needs this to be able to have any sort of life, hospital visits etc. Recently her car lost all power, we thought it was the alternator, but it appears that it is the Body Control Modual. I understand that to purchase a replacement and have it fitted and set up can be very expensive, anywhere between £500 and £1000. The other problem is that try as I might I cannot locate anyone in the Doncaster area of South Yorkshire who can replace this for her apart from a main dealer who she cannot afford. I wondered if anyone on this forum might be able to advise? 

How dead is the module? If you can still backup the AS BUILT data using Forscan then you can just replace the module and load the backup onto the new one.

Hello, Thank you for your reply, which I truly appreciate, The Module seems to be an intermittent fault, so at present it's working.  I thought I would give a little more detail to see if this helps. For the past couple of years if the car has been left for a couple of weeks the battery will be flat. A replacement battery did not help. The starter motor was replaced and the key barrel after the starter was not engaging properly, this seemed to stop the starting problems, but not the flat battery problem. A test to see if the alternator is charging the battery shows that it is. Another problem has been that after locking the car, the next day, or after a few hours the doors are found to have unlocked themselves. The last journey for the car was to a supermarket four miles away, on the return journey the car started fine, but when she got to the traffic lights near the supermarket she indicated and the indicators were VERY RAPID, though no bulbs are out. Half a mile later the panel lit up with every warning light you can imagine and the windscreen wipers came on and then a total power failure...Are these symptoms indicative of a BCM fault? or is it something else. After charging the battery it all seems to be working fine, surely if the car starts and is running and the alternator is working ok, there should not be a total power failure and a battery that is totally discharged? Is there anyway to diagnose exactly what the fault may be? Would a code reader tell me if the BCM was at fault? The car is a FORD FIESTA 1.4 PETROL ZETEC CLIMATE registered in 2007

10 minutes ago, Ged65 said:

For the past couple of years if the car has been left for a couple of weeks the battery will be flat. A replacement battery did not help. The starter motor was replaced and the key barrel after the starter was not engaging properly, this seemed to stop the starting problems, but not the flat battery problem. A test to see if the alternator is charging the battery shows that it is

Have you measured the current draw when the car is locked, all lights switched off etc?

A battery with low voltage can give similar symptoms to a failed BCM, so it's worth ruling out battery issues first.

This assumes that the alternator is working. It might charge the battery while running and discharge it when it isn't. On a fourteen year old car, it is more likely than a duff bcm.. have an auto electrician check it using the magic words ' diode pack'.

Hello, Thank you for all your helpful replies, I'm having a bit of a flare up of my current illness at present, but as soon as I'm up to it (Hopefully the weekend) I'll try some of your suggestions, if they don't work I might be heard shouting a few of my own suggestions at the car. Thank you again, much appreciated

Hello, Sorry it took me a while to get back but as I said it was due to ill health. I promised an update so here it is. After several investigations it was discovered that there was an intermittent alternator fault, when the engine first started it gave an output so looked as though it was ok, but a few moment later on checking again it was giving out nothing, so she has had it replaced. However she still has a problem, a strange one which I don't know if anyone knows the cause of this and I'm hoping nobody will mention the dreaded words, Body Control Module? After replacing the Alternator, when the engine is started, neither the Speedo Nor Rev counter work for something like 15 to 20 seconds, it's strange, but is it anything to worry about?