Hi,

My car has been in the dealership 3 times for the below fault and no problem has been identified so the garage have suggested a series of possible fixes which may or may not help. Your advice would be appreciated before I run in blindly.

The details are:

Ford Focus Ghia 1.6 Petrol - 56 plate (September 2006)

Series of intermittent problems including in order of regularity of occurrence:

Break system warning light comes on dash which the external temperature reading disappears and is replaced by 2 dashes in the LCD display. This occurs intermittently and can be for a few seconds up to 30 seconds. It can happen 0 or 20+ times in a 30 minute commute to work.

Same fault as above but with ABS light coming on. If this happens it is usually followed by the whole dash dying including dials going to zero. The rev counter can come back but I have always had to turn off the ignition and then back on to get the rest back.

When the second fault occurred last time the car was in cruise control and it dropped out of the cruise control although the engine remained running.

I have also noticed that on occasion there has been a brief loss of power when accelerating, but mostly when travelling at a constant speed. If this happens in one journey then it is likely to happen again.

This is getting worse over time but they say there have been no error codes logged in the computer. The engine management light was on when I dropped it off last, but apparently it was off when they restarted the car 10 minutes later.

The first fix was a reset of an engine module (I don't know which) - symptoms disappeared for 6 months, then gradually came back

The second was a loose wire behind the dash. The problem occurred again as I pulled out of the garage.

Current proposed fix is to replace the ABS module at a cost of over £1k. As the dealership said they were "sitting on the fence" as to whether it would fix the issue I am loathe to do it blindly.

Can anyone help?

Hi,

My car has been in the dealership 3 times for the below fault and no problem has been identified so the garage have suggested a series of possible fixes which may or may not help. Your advice would be appreciated before I run in blindly.

The details are:

Ford Focus Ghia 1.6 Petrol - 56 plate (September 2006)

Series of intermittent problems including in order of regularity of occurrence:

Break system warning light comes on dash which the external temperature reading disappears and is replaced by 2 dashes in the LCD display. This occurs intermittently and can be for a few seconds up to 30 seconds. It can happen 0 or 20+ times in a 30 minute commute to work.

Same fault as above but with ABS light coming on. If this happens it is usually followed by the whole dash dying including dials going to zero. The rev counter can come back but I have always had to turn off the ignition and then back on to get the rest back.

When the second fault occurred last time the car was in cruise control and it dropped out of the cruise control although the engine remained running.

I have also noticed that on occasion there has been a brief loss of power when accelerating, but mostly when travelling at a constant speed. If this happens in one journey then it is likely to happen again.

This is getting worse over time but they say there have been no error codes logged in the computer. The engine management light was on when I dropped it off last, but apparently it was off when they restarted the car 10 minutes later.

The first fix was a reset of an engine module (I don't know which) - symptoms disappeared for 6 months, then gradually came back

The second was a loose wire behind the dash. The problem occurred again as I pulled out of the garage.

Current proposed fix is to replace the ABS module at a cost of over £1k. As the dealership said they were "sitting on the fence" as to whether it would fix the issue I am loathe to do it blindly.

Can anyone help?

afte r a lot of trawling the net it would appear the 2006 focus also suffers from a faulty instrument cluster and the problem seems to be growing quite rapidly a ford mechanic has told me that a fauloty dash cluster will give the very same symptoms and will not throw up a code the only way to check is the actual cluster has to be tested i would certainly tell them that theres a possibilitythe cluster is at fault as there sems to be many complsints of this issue they will say theres not but its rubbish the truth is there is from what ive managed to find it would appear these other people like you are dropping the car off and the car seems to be fine some have spent silly money having things replaced to no avail ide push to have the cluster checked if im honest what makes them assume its the abs module and why would that cause the faults you described ive had a faulty module in a vw and it didnt cause any of the symptoms you describe.

another reason to say its the cluster is if you switch the ignition off and then on the fault can go away just like rebooting a computer really which makes me think cluster fault

Thanks,

I have spent a lot of time searching too and have mainly found this fault thrown up on the 2003 models. Not very much in the 2006. Any chance you post the link of where you were reading this.

I have no idea why they said the ABS module. There is some indication this throws up similar problems in the Fiesta, but I have not found anything online about the Focus. It was the Master Mechanic who basically said he didn't know but a faulty ABS module could casue all the faults.

Will be talking to the dealership again tomorrow so will see what they say.

Thanks,

I have spent a lot of time searching too and have mainly found this fault thrown up on the 2003 models. Not very much in the 2006. Any chance you post the link of where you were reading this.

I have no idea why they said the ABS module. There is some indication this throws up similar problems in the Fiesta, but I have not found anything online about the Focus. It was the Master Mechanic who basically said he didn't know but a faulty ABS module could casue all the faults.

Will be talking to the dealership again tomorrow so will see what they say.

i was just trawling throughgoogle theres a lot in the us that have had the same symptoms and they are 06 plates its all focuses that suffer frpom it youll see mainly 00-03 plates but its basically all same design same cluster fault ide be asking what they intend if the abs unit doesnt fix the issue

I have just been diagnosed with a similar fault. They say its the instrument cluster need replacing. They claim its not a known manufacturing fault on cars before 2005(which is a different fault as car doesnt cut out there).

Im gathering evidence to try make them see that this is potentially a serious fault (my car cuts out at speed!). I have a friend with similar problems. Please write back if you have had this fixed and what they told you?

Hi all - my Fiesta had that happen just yesterday. I noticed no response from the accelerator and the LCD display showed all dashes. I was on the freeway and slowed down to a stop on the side of the road, restarted the car and the car went back to normal. Has anyone had this fixed as yet? Please let us know

Hi all - my Fiesta had that happen just yesterday. I noticed no response from the accelerator and the LCD display showed all dashes. I was on the freeway and slowed down to a stop on the side of the road, restarted the car and the car went back to normal. Has anyone had this fixed as yet? Please let us know

sounds like the plug is loose on the rear of the cluster,

if you remove the 2 screws at the bottom of the cluster the unit will pull out, and their is one plug at the rear,

i had mine removed when i was cutting out the dash for the ST pod and when the cluster was connected the car was running,

i pluged out the cluster then went to move the car and the engine wouldnt rev any higher than what was last displayed on the cluster.

so their seems to be a regulator built in to the cluster,

I have had this exact problem for months, luckily I looked into it relentlessly before visiting mechanics and I found removing my instrument cluster, disconnecting the connector, cleaning and reconnecting worked.

If your car ever refuses to start and just throws a fault with the engine or throws up ABS module failure and/or CAN Bus communication errors on the ODB… sounds a bit mad but bang the dash above the instrument cluster and it should start 🤷‍♂️

Thats how I figured it was loose connector, always start with the simplest fix

Ford Focus 2009 MK2 

Only 12 years late to the party 🤣

So are you going to post the advertising link now or are you going to answer a few more old posts first ?