I have had two incidents now where my Ford Modeo 2016, 2 litre diesel hasn't started normally and has felt like the engine has been immobilised. The first time I had noticed that I had left the car unlocked while shopping, so I just presumed the immobiliser had kicked in. When I got out of the car and locked and unlocked the vehicle, it started fine, however the spanner, which I believe is a Powertrain fault was on the dashboard. When I got home, it seemed to work fine again and the spanner had disappeared. I have a cheap ODB scanner which found no faults.

This happened again to me today, about 2 weeks after the previous incident. This time the car was locked when i returned to it. The car unlocked fine, I noticed the wing mirrors hadn't returned to the drive mode and were still closed in. When I tried to start the car, it was immobilised and there was nothing on the dashboard accept the red handbreak light. I locked and unlocked the car but this didn't work. I then repeatedly pressed the unlock key on my keyfob (mainly out of frustration) I then heard beeping and my wing mirrors moving out. The dashboard lit up and the car started. Again I had the spanner displayed on the dashboard, this has cleared again and after a scan, no faults were found. 

Does this sound like anything that anybody else has experienced? I was thinking maybe a key fault, its the spanner that comes on immediately after that concerns me though.

Start with the easy things first. Buy a good quality Panasonic or Energizer CR2032 battery and replace the one in your keyfob. If you have a multimeter then measure the voltage of the new battery before you install it. The voltage should be 3.30V and if it is less than 2.99V it is already duff !

Basic code readers cause a lot of 'Red Herrings' on Ford vehicles as they often don't read both Canbus systems and also very often don't read the Ford specific DTC's.

You need to use a windows laptop with FORScan (free) and a vLinker FS cable then you will be able to check all the DTC's.

The vehicle immobiliser is automatically active a few seconds after the ignition is turned off, regardless of whether or not the doors are locked.