Hi, 

Please excuse my limited car knowledge- if I need to clarify anything please ask. I have a ford focus style 2008 1.6l petrol. I took the car to ford to have an engine management light diagnosed after the car went into limp home mode. 

Faults found:

Carried out IDS and fault codes stored. U1900 CAN communication Bus fail. U2102 CAN Communication bus fault. U2202 Configuration error. U2510CAN communication has fault. U0001 High speed  CAN communication bus. U0140 Lost communication with BCM. Suspect faulty instrument cluster. 

Price quoted approx 1,600. Car has 130,000 miles on the clock and has been super reliable up to now. 

Local garage and ford said that a second hand cluster could be an option, although not guaranteed to work/be programmable to the vehicle. 

Seeming a real shame to scrap this car which is in otherwise really good condition for the age.

Does anyone have any experience with second hand/refurbished instrument clusters and whether it would be worth pursuing this route/how much this route might cost?

Thanks in advance!

Jenna 

Replacement / second hand instrument clusters can be a real pain to sometimes programme. The PATS immobiliser is part of the instrument cluster on your vehicle.

The easiest option is to send the instrument cluster away to a company that does repair and refurbishment. Costs these days are typically between £90 - £140 and takes 3 or 4 days.

Check out e-Bay or just do a search with Google for IC refurbishments. Check the companies feedback to see what people have to say about them before choosing one

2 hours ago, Jenna1234 said:

Price quoted approx 1,600.

Forget that

Get the cluster resoldered, it's a known issue on these models. Search the forum for more info or follow the advice above

A lot of people have just done it themselves (The soldering)

There are YouTube videos about dismantling the cluster and resoldering the pins. I have done one.  It needs major dismantle including prising the needles off the gauges.  And the soldering needs precision. What I am thinking is do you know anyone who is handy at electronic stuff eg a tv repair man if they still exist.  It needs about 10 pence worth of solder plus some skill. 

Someone who’s good at mobile phone repairs / laptop repairs should be capable.  I can’t help feeling you’ve already been robbed for the diagnosis (which of course might be wrong but it sounds quite likely it’s correct)

Contact a guy called Richard at Customod. He supplied me a wiped cluster, with factory asbuilt data. All i had to do was set the mileage as he has a way of zero-ing it and code the keys, job done. Charged me £130 and walked me thru the install. Cannot fault him, he checks the solder joints before dispatch so you can have peace of mind.

Thanks so much for the replies. Yes I did have to pay a fair whack for the pleasure of Ford telling me it would cost 1600!! However it looks like there are some decent companies out there offering repair so I will go down this route. 

I will research some reviews on the company below but if anyone has any good or bad experiences and want to let me know then please feel free:

https://www.ecutesting.com/common-faults/ford/focus-dashdashboard-instrument-cluster/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjfuX8KC_-AIVBYBQBh3ruw9_EAAYASAAEgLey_D_BwE

Anyone know any good youtube videos for removing the instrument cluster? or otherwise anything to watch out for!? I'm pretty happy to get stuck in and give it a go but any advice is appreciated.

1 hour ago, Jenna1234 said:

or otherwise anything to watch out for!?

Only one problem to look out for: The clear plastic front is brittle and not available separately. There are lugs at the top that dig deep in to the soft fascia, and must be eased out very carefully without stressing the plastic front. You can push the fascia as hard as you like, but be careful about levering against the cluster. Flat bladed knives and old credit cards make useful tools to assist in removing these lugs. I seem to recall that the top must be released first,then it tilts forward & down a bit to release the bottom.

A few photos and some info in: https://www.fordownersclub.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=40491

The commonest problem, especially for 2006 cars, is the solder joints to the main connector. But on a 2008 car you can not rely on this definitely being the problem, quite a lot of different failures can happen.

Using a secondhand cluster involves reprogramming of pats etc and you don’t know if it’s going to fail as your present one seems to have done. Also I was led to believe mileages cannot be wound back, only forward so a previous post surprised  me. 
setting up another cluster would involve Forscan software and ELM327 interface as well.

my Son’s 2008 ST was reconditioned / resoldered locally for £96 and was simply ‘plug and play’

35 minutes ago, RL123 said:

Using a secondhand cluster involves reprogramming of pats etc and you don’t know if it’s going to fail as your present one seems to have done. Also I was led to believe mileages cannot be wound back, only forward so a previous post surprised  me. 
setting up another cluster would involve Forscan software and ELM327 interface as well.

my Son’s 2008 ST was reconditioned / resoldered locally for £96 and was simply ‘plug and play’

I to was under that impression, so was suprised when offered and it came zero'd, allegedly its a closely guarded secret how he does it, but he does it. As mine is extreemly low mileage for its year, just coming up on 39,000 which i wanted to protect. The cluster i removed had a burnt out upper LCD and was as annoying as hell and spares were like hens teeth or gold plated rocking horse poo. Once received took me 10-20 minutes to install and sort out. The only pain was setting the time and date as it had to be done in increments.

Handy to know that it can be done, guess by replacing certain chips etc. 

This is all really helpful- thank you! I managed to get the cluster out. I can't believe that's all it was... fingers crossed that a repair will be possible. I will report back! 

hello i am having the same problem car when ignition on ford sign doesnt come on till 45secs later and all dials take a while to warm up now yesterday driving comes up with brake light bulb fault then brake fuild low then it was a dashboard disso before all lights and dials went comepletely but car is driving fine i took to garage they changed bulb and took plugs off battery to reset but didnt solve issue diagnoised with instrument cluster needs fixing i love my ford focus 163bhp beast and really dont wanna part so is this worth fixing and has anyone fixed and been fine or just had more problems as i had a cmax that did the same but just scrapped this one i really really dont want to any advice please xxxxx

There are plenty of Cluster repairers around. I can recommend 2 guys from Facebook that do a postal service with full backup, Ollie Jones and Richard Aeron Beetwell. Richard did my 2007 ghia one as its a one off and Ford want £1000+ to replace. costs range from £60 - £120 depending on who and where, or if you can solder its a DIY job. HTH

163bhp must be a Mk3.  Repair costs may be a bit higher for those than the infamous Mk2 cluster.

Hi everyone. I have a Mondeo Mk4 2009 and am having problems with my Instrument cluster. Could anyone tell me if they know anyone who can fix it in or near Northampton please?

1 minute ago, Markthetart said:

anyone tell me if they know anyone who can fix it i

@rd457 can probably help

Richard at Customod, or Ollie Jones via facebook, used both and highly recomended.

10 hours ago, Markthetart said:

Hi everyone. I have a Mondeo Mk4 2009 and am having problems with my Instrument cluster. Could anyone tell me if they know anyone who can fix it in or near Northampton please?

You're probably a bit too far away to want to bring it to me and pick it up again later. If you're willing to post it though you can find my service here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/314393033915

Please check that it's what I'm referring to as a 'type 3' and not a 'type 4' though.