Hi everyone,

I am looking for information from anyone who owns a Focus or Focus Estate from 2019 plates to the current 72 plates.  

I have owned 3 Focuses during this period, all of which have had significant electrical faults.  I have listed some of these below:

-Parasitic battery draw resulting in car battery running flat despite long journeys
-Keyless entry failure
-Emergency System Malfunction:  Service Required
-Pre-collision braking system firing for no reason causing vehicle to emergency stop
-Dashboard cluster failure causing black screen
-Parking sensors firing for no reason
 

I know there are posts with people asking advice on these issues, myself included.  But I believe there to be inherent issues with the Sync3 software and associated hardware, based on conversations with breakdown companies and other owners.

I am looking to reach out to other owners.  If you have experienced any issues, and are happy to write a couple of paragraphs detailing your experiences and how helpful Ford were in resolving these issues, I'd be extremely grateful.

I have personally found CRC to be reticent to accept that there are inherent faults that Ford needs to address and am hoping that this forum can provide some anecdotal insight for CRC.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you all, and Merry Christmas!


Alex 

Wife had this yesterday..... Message gone today. Only thing I did was properly cleared ice from front cameras, not sure if related or not?

Emergency System Malfunction:  Service Required

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a Ford Focus 1.0 Ecoboost Titanium bought new in June 2020 now with 35k on the clock.

With regard to the issues you list:

-Parasitic battery draw resulting in car battery running flat despite long journeys - I have not yet experienced this.

-Keyless entry failure - I could not understand keyless entry when so little effort is required to push a button in one's pocket on approaching the car so I disabled it.

-Emergency System Malfunction:  Service Required - experienced once ... at -6 DegC when the front of the car had been encrusted with ice and snow.  But never again.

-Pre-collision braking system firing for no reason causing vehicle to emergency stop - thank goodness have never experienced this, though the warning system can get a bit over sensitive from time to time.

-Dashboard cluster failure causing black screen - never experienced this.

-Parking sensors firing for no reason - v rarely these will fire for no apparent reason ... always when the car is dirty ... a sponge with warm water over the sensors has for me always resoved the issue.

I have never contacted the "CRC" so I admit I had to Google this to find out it meant Customer Relationship Centre.  

All my answers above come with a cautious "touch wood"!

I have a late 2018 build MK4 Focus 1.5L Automatic.

• Parasitic battery draw resulting in car battery running flat despite long journeys: Yes, battery drained to 7V on driveway overnight. I believe this was caused by an Emergency System (Modem) Malfunction on the previous journey.
• Keyless entry failure: No, but has it has failed due to low key fob battery. It warned me the battery was low (which was nice) but it failed on the same journey, giving me no time to replace it.
• Emergency System Malfunction: Service Required: Yes, this has occurred 2 times in under 2 years. The 2nd time it malfunctioned while in a petrol station, but this time it did not cause any parasitic drain overnight.
• Pre-collision braking system firing for no reason causing vehicle to emergency stop: I have only had this system trigger a few times where I have been approaching parked cars in my lane. It has never initiated an unexpected emergency stop though.
• Dashboard cluster failure causing black screen: Not had this.
• Parking sensors firing for no reason: Yes, happens more occasionally over uneven but unobstructed surroundings. However I have had about 3 times where a single sensor beeped while traveling in open road over 30mph with no indication of which side. 

Due to the battery issues I am now the owner of a portable jump starter and ctek battery charger for peace of mind. I have been told by my local garage electrician that my battery is "not in the best health", despite it being less than 2 years old fitted by a Ford dealership, it will not hold a charge above 12.2V. Saying this, the car has never failed to start happily at 11.4V in the cold months. I'm planning to have an uprated battery fitted in the future once I can confirm my local garage will also do the necessary programming. But I want Ford services to look at a few module updates beforehand that don't come OTA.

-Parasitic battery draw resulting in car battery running flat despite long journeys
-Keyless entry failure
-Emergency System Malfunction:  Service Required

These 3 are all the same thing really.

The TCU module crashes causing the Emergency system malfunction error, this then stops the module sleeping and drains the battery. When the battery gets low the keyless entry turns off to save power.

I used to get really defensive when people used to say Fords are junk or Fix Or Repair Daily,

But after having the pleasure of owning a MK4 Focus, which was falling to bits after 18 months (I hope the new owner isn't on here), and a MK3.5 with the woeful 6F15 transmission, I sympathise

Just now, DaveT70 said:

I used to get really defensive when people used to say Fords are junk or Fix Or Repair Daily,

But after having the pleasure of owning a MK4 Focus, which was falling to bits after 18 months (I hope the new owner isn't on here), and a MK3.5 with the woeful 6F15 transmission, I sympathise

I wonder if a lot of it is over complicated modern cars built to a budget because I see a lot of problems on other forums too. I don't know if there is a maker that doesn't have it's share of problems anymore.

The problem with Mk4 Focus is it was supposed to be a world car again, as per MK3, but half way through development Ford USA decided no more cars, only SUVs and Trucks for North America & Canada markets so Ford of Europe had to aggressively cost cut to try and get the car into profit. 

1 hour ago, alexp999 said:

I see a lot of problems on other forums too.

I agree, sadly. I've spent a lot of time "forum lurking" lately as part of my research into trying to find a car I actually want to buy, and similar stuff comes up everywhere. Even brands like Toyota which I have historically perceived as reliable - quite a few problems on there regarding 12V battery drain on hybrids.

There's a heck of a lot of stuff in current models that was not there even a few years back - some of it mandated by legislation, some of it ("connectivity" mostly) apparently demanded by customers. All this has to be accommodated within prices that consumers might feasibly afford, so something has to give, somewhere.

 

56 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Even brands like Toyota which I have historically perceived as reliable - quite a few problems on there regarding 12V battery drain on hybrids.

Agreed, but the thing with Toyota is, they'll fix it. And if you have the car serviced by them evry year, they keep extending the warranty.

Ford just deny there's anything wrong with known issues (Powershift for example) to save on warranty cost. Then they go out of warranty and you're on your own

29 minutes ago, DaveT70 said:

And if you have the car serviced by them evry year, they keep extending the warranty.

Yes, that's a good feature which I noted when testing a Corolla** recently. Intended to encourage you to stick to the dealer network I suppose, but still pretty good nonetheless.

Loads of our local taxi men now use Toyota hybrids. I usually sit up front and have a natter and some of them have done astronomical mileages, no-one has reported a bad ownership experience (and, as a rule, these guys certainly know how to moan!). 

**The Corolla gets an upgrade for 2023 (jump in power and other stuff) so I'm intending to try a drive in a 2023MY when the dealer gets their demo!

I'm thinking of a Toyota next too, not made my mind up yet. I like the corolla and the CHR

Just now, DaveT70 said:

I'm thinking of a Toyota next too, not made my mind up yet. I like the corolla and the CHR

We're going way off topic (as normal) but I was pretty impressed with the drive, as I reported in another thread. I surprised myself as I'm not at all a 2-pedal fan but rather liked it anyway.

Yeah, I quite like the C-HR despite (or maybe because of?) the wacky looks - I think a new generation is fairly imminent including a PHEV version.

Also (again as mentioned elsewhere) quite taken with the new Honda Civic though that's really too big for my needs these days. (I had one about 20 years ago and that was about half a metre shorter and quite a lot narrower than the current version.)

While we are slightly off-topic, the recent carwow review of the Focus Mk4.5 next to it's competition looks abysmal. It's shocking what Ford has cut over the last few years that it makes me proud to own the last best of breed Focus mk4 despite the minor problems I've had with it.

A new Sync3 mk4.5 Focus (not a sync 4 where they stupidly removed all the buttons) comes with the problematic 7-speed powershift AGAIN, with the smaller 1.0L engine with no engine cover for MORE money. For goodness sake, do not buy this new Focus! It doesn't hold a candle to a used 1.5L 8-speed auto even with the mild-hybrid system.

4 hours ago, alexp999 said:

I wonder if a lot of it is over complicated modern cars built to a budget because I see a lot of problems on other forums too. I don't know if there is a maker that doesn't have it's share of problems anymore.

That's probably because all the modern car manufacturers integrate technologies from 3rd parties so are likely to use the same components across different brands - radars, parking sensors, cameras are typical examples.

I'm sure these new fangled battery cars will be much better, there's hardly any computer chips/software on them to go wrong and any 'over the air' updates are bound to go smoothly... 

1 minute ago, StephenFord said:

I'm sure these new fangled battery cars will be much better, there's hardly any computer chips/software on them to go wrong and any 'over the air' updates are bound to go smoothly... 

Computer says no.