2008 Focus 1.6 tdci - P0087 - engine malfunction/limp mode

Hi everyone,

So I’m experiencing the ominous P0087 (ominous as it seems so hard to pin down) and am hoping for a bit of advice on where to go next.

I’ve got a Mk2 2008 Focus 1.6 tdci titanium 109bhp which I’ve owned for almost 10 years.  I’ll try give as much history and background as possible.

In all honesty for a few years now the yellow engine management light has been intermittently appearing. When it’s not on the car runs fine,  when it shows it seems to run a little rough. Occasionally stalls when pulling away from stationary.  I’ve had it looked over, serviced, P0087 code cleared and nothing more. I’ve lived with it.

In the last couple of months it’s got a bit worse. The engine management light has been on more than it’s been off, and on a couple of occasions the car has stalled when moving. On two occasions an engine malfunction warning has popped up and the car has put itself into limp mode.  Off and on doesn’t necessarily clear this immediately, but it would ultimately disappear and go back to intermittent engine management light only.

I took it into my usual garage (and mate) who replaced the air and fuel filters and cleared the code down. But the intermittent engine management light reappeared within a day or two. He recommended I take the car to a diesel specialist.

So I booked in at the best known diesel garage in my area who ran some tests and suggested the following:

Plan A (most likely) - fuel pump solenoid - £350ish

Plan B - wiring loom - £1200ish

I had the solenoid changed and all seemed well for about 48 hours. I think he mentioned he’d also secured the wiring loom and possibly replaced the terminals at either end. Since then the symptoms have shifted but it’s still not resolved.  The engine management light hasn’t re-appeared since the solenoid was replaced, but the engine malfunction accompanied by limp mode now occurs on pretty much every journey. Sometimes as soon as I start up, sometimes 10 mins into the journey.

During the rare moments it’s not showing the error it feels like the car is running fine. Although a regular feature is that the car smells ‘fumey’ when running, this has been the case for a while and since before this repair.  I know there are common issues with leaky injectors on this engine and I’ve had to had no.3 resealed several times. 

I appreciate it’s hard to advise remotely but would be grateful for any pointers. Ideally I’d like to avoid the expensive wiring loom fix as there’s no guarantee it will resolve the issue. However I’d consider it if it could somehow be confirmed to be the root cause, when balanced against the cost of a newer replacement. Is there any way of pinning it down?

I’m interested that the symptoms have changed since having the solenoid replaced and wondering if this points anywhere?

Ive tried reading up online and it seems this fault code can be caused by so many different things - HPFP, FPR, leaky injectors, wiring, bad battery.

Don’t want to start chucking money down a rabbit hole, but open to thoughts, ideas and previous experience.

TIA