Hi everyone, 

I recently bought a 2008 Mk2.5 with the Duratec 2.0 and the car was running fine up until my girlfriend borrowed it and went for a road trip to France. Two days ago the car died and now it's stuck in limp mode, 1200 km from home. 

Thankfully, I gave her my OBD reader and spare phone with Forscan Lite and Car Scanner. After running the DTC scan we got following errors; P2110, P0607; which led me to believe the ECU might be at fault, so we did an ECU reset through Forscan, but that didn't help and the limp mode is still on. 

But then I realized there was also a bunch of instrument cluster DTCs, including the immobilizer, CAN bus, power steering and throttle position.

That got me thinking, could it be the dreaded instrument cluster bad solders causing the limp mode?

 

 

 

55 minutes ago, Dresden said:

instrument cluster bad solders causing the limp mode?

Yes.

Thump the top of the dashboard just above the instrument cluster. If that fails replace the girlfriend 🤣

Great. To make things worse, the guys in the camp were so clever that they thought there's no oil in the car, because they don't know how the dipstick works. So they overfilled it with approx 1l of 5W-30. 

I will have to borrow a tow truck and drive 1200 km to pick up the car. Not sure if I want my girlfriend to come back with me. 

Moral of the story; never let anyone borrow your car, especially the girlfriend. 

Definite cluster fault 

My son drove his 2008 ST (300 miles ) approx 500km by slapping the dash . Not good for the nerves

The ignition switch is also a common problem, it’s worth changing, as it’s an easy job and only about £10 on eBay, but it’s more likely to be the soldering problem unfortunately. 

I'll check the solders once I tow it back in. Hopefully it's not a dying ECU as well. 

Another question. Could all the problems be caused by a weak battery? I had my gf borrow a voltmeter and check the battery, it's at 11.5V. That's way lower than it should be.

The car has also misfires now. Maybe the weak battery isn't supplying enough power to the ignition coils? 

If the voltage is 11.5 with the engine running, suspect a charging fault, perhaps alternator. Should be in the region of 14v with the engine running.

P.s. still think it’s the cluster, give it a whack

If it's 11.5v with engine running, unplug the SmartCharge plug for now and it should default to 13v.

Doesn't look good. New battery in and it's doing the same thing as before. Here's the video. I'm open to any ideas. 

 

https://youtu.be/hAID4jzE-lA?si=B9pU-7ojA4K1-l1c

 

On 9/12/2023 at 8:55 AM, DaveT70 said:

Definite cluster fault 

 

It took a while to get the car fixed, but it's finally done. The cluster was faulty, but re-solder didn't help. It was actually a bad PCM that was causing the issues. So if you have P0607 and P2110 DTCs at the same time, it's almost certain it's the PCM. 

Thanks for reporting back. Many people don't bother 👍.

No problem. Apparently it's a common issue for 1.8 and 2.0 Duratec. Same as water leaking into the EHPAS electric connectors.