tl;dr:

Hello, 2010 Focus 1.6TDCI losing 'oomf' after 20mins of driving especially noticeable up hill. Garage replaced EGR, without fix. Concerned about cost, anyone else had this issue?

 

Hello everyone,

 

Just signed up today and having a scour through the forums there seems to be a few EGR related issues for the Ford Focus and believe my issues may fall into that category?

This thread was similar to my own: New EGR Valve still getting p042f and also this one from 2016 went into quite a bit of detail about the EGR valve.

 

My Problem:

Car starts fine, and drives fine initially, then after about 20-30 minutes of driving it looses any oomf (not sure the technical term... boost?), so going up hills becomes a nightmare (if anyone knows Telegraph Hill between Exeter and Newton Abbot, when the car is working can hit at 70-75, and maintain speed up the hill in gear 5. When it is playing up it very quickly looses speed (foot to the floor), end up having to change down to 3rd and that manages to keep it at about 40mph but won't accelerate past that point... not particularly safe.

Annoyingly I live about 20minutes away from that hill, so the car teases me once every 4th or 5th time up there with normal power!

It doesn't need to be a hill quite as severe at Haldon, normal inclines it doesn't like either, and on the flat the car 'sounds' different and doesn't accelerate well.

 

What I've tried:

When this first started happening I took to my local garage who replaced the EGR valve as the fault code pointed at EGR, they stated it was totally seized up, they installed and reprogrammed a new one, same problem still happened, so they switched it out under warranty... but still not working, they scratched their heads and said you might need to go to Ford to get this fixed. (I am now worried from the 2016 post I linked to above, that they may have not put a genuine part in and it will be £££ to fix)

I took it to Ford, just before pandemic started, one of their mechanics took it home, but it didn't error on them, pandemic hit, they were shutting, (Luckily I think a bill wasn't generated) so I collected the car and since it moves about once a week for a quick blast around but not enough to warrant spending lots of money on it.

Our local Ford garage charge about £120 per hour Labour, and I took it there recently (a month ago) as my ECU was broken and car kept switching off and they replaced the ECU. (Body control module, is that still ECU? - water ingress), however they didn't investigate the EGR/loss of oomf issue as it was a 'secondary fault. £240 bill for labour, £600 for ECU.

The only DIY I have done to the car is clean both the MAF and the Air intake temp sensor (can't find the MAP sensor), as a throwaway comment from the front-desk at Ford said it might be that rather than EGR after I picked up my car.

What next?:

For Ford to diagnose the EGR/oomf fault they have stated they will likely need 2 mechanics to drive it around for a couple of hours, So I am then thinking that is £480 before they even get to fixing the issue and starting to panic slightly as just spent about £800 on the car (ECU issue), as well as the MOT about 2 months ago (new fuel injectors or seals plus MOT and other bits £500). Plus the cost of the initial EGR replacement that didn't work.

On a 2010 Ford Focus with 100,000 miles on the clock, I am starting to weigh up the cars value.

I am toying with the idea of EGR software delete, but then if the original EGR was seized up, is that because the DPF is clogged up (but not showing any error codes?) that looks even more expensive... or is it a electrical/wiring thing? ... or other pipes connected to EGR?

 

I am really hopeful (as these issues appear common) someone can say 'look at this bit' or 'this exact thing happened to me and XX fixed it'

I have downloaded a Car Scanner App and don't really understand what it is showing me other than these 2 error codes over the last 2 weeks:

• P042F - EGR valve actuator A- actuator stuck closed (surely this would mean that it was closed all the time so clean air only - car should perform well/better?)
• The last 3 runs U0073 - Control module - date bus off (I assume something went awry with the OBDII port rather than the ECU)

 

Thanks in advance

Tom

when was fuel filter done i had same prob like this sticking foot down hard going up hills was down to my fuel filter

I had the exact same problem with the same error code. It seems like this is a widespread issue. Read my post on this thread: 

 

 

Thank you Lasthope, I will have a rummage in the car, but believe fuel filter was changed a couple of years ago.

Vladek, thanks, I had read your post and replies although I dont believe my car is misfiring, although that could be what it is doing. I am going to try unplugging the EGR and see if that helps. Unfortunately i dont have a laptop so am just using a basic bluetooth obd2 reader and free android tool, which isnt great at capturing live data.

 

I will continue playing with it, but sounds like some kind of EGR delete may be required.

 

Edited August 18, 20214 yr by ThomasG1980s
Typo

my 1.6 was ok driving easy around doors but as soon as you stuck foot down hard it would miss a beat or trying to over take some one and going up big hills lol soon as fuel filter was done car was mint

Hi all,

lasthope - Just waiting for the garage to get back to me, as pretty sure new fuel filter was put in about 3 years ago.

 

I also haven't managed to have a rummage around and unplug the EGR yet to see if consistantly works after I do that, however I did take it for a run last week and on the tool I used managed to have 2 graphs open so it actually recorded them this time... Can I check does this look normal for the EGR error and EGR duty for a 30 minute drive - The actual car was working properly up hills during the drive.

• (ish)8:23-8:33 minutes I was stationary outside my house playing with the OBD2 reader)
• (ish) 8:33-840 was city driving
• (ish) 8:40-9:00 was motorway driving
• Last few minutes city driving again

Seems really odd that my EGR just seems to jump from 100%error to -100% error constantly and the EGR duty sporadically reads like it does something?

I have zoomed in on the couple of times it looks like it 'acted' normally in the 3rd image.