My 2009 Mondeo occasionally (but increasingly frequently) has an "engine malfunction" which occurs when I power the ignition, before even starting the car - rarely first thing in the morning, but often on the second or subsequent trip in a given day
If I drive for a few miles, especially if I give it some revs in that time, if I stop and restart the car, the problem often goes away. The problem sometimes goes away even if I don’t drive anywhere, but just wait and restart it. In either case, particularly, it seems, if I get out and lock, then unlock the car first, the problem will go away.
The engine seems to rev okay when in limp mode, but only ever seems to reach 2nd or 3rd gear. There's a definite loss of power at the wheels in any case.

It has previously had the same intermittent "engine malfunction" symptom with the previous owner and it turned out to be a faulty catalytic converter outlet sensor
I have recently been experiencing some turbo lag on acceleration, but the malfunction problem was present before this symptom developed
I have a Vlink OBD2 scanner, and I've attached the DTC log from FORScan, which I can't really make much sense of.

Some subjective or circumstantial observations are: (some of this might not be relevant)

• It pops up and says "diesel filter overloaded", sometimes even after driving on the motorway for some time - filter was replaced less than a year ago
• It pops up and says "change oil" every other month or so, but I only do 10k miles annually, so I reset it (I do change the oil every year)
• I haven't been keeping an exact record of when the problem occurs, but It seems to happen slightly more regularly when there's less fuel in the tank
• I have given it a bottle of STP 5-in-1 diesel fuel system cleaner to no effect
• I have just replaced the battery (subsequent to the problem starting)

I'm loathed to take it to Hendy or the like, and pay them the best part of £200 just for them to glance at it, so any ideas of what to do with it to get it fixed would be appreciated!

09-12-23 DTCs.txt

If it was a Focus, I would suggest investigating for dry solder joints in the instrument cluster. I think I read somewhere mondeo of that age can also suffer.

worth a try when the engine malfunction appears, try slapping the dash above the centre of the cluster and see if it brings it out of limp home mode.