HELP!! – DTC code nightmare!

Hi all,

I’ve got a strange problem with my Focus II CC that I can’t figure out and I URGENTLY need some guidance on and wondered if anyone might be able to help me.

I’m supposed to be going away tomorrow and despite it being easter I could get a mobile mechanic from “clickmechanic” to do some work on it today – but they need me to define what job I need them to do so they turn up with the right kit and pre-charge me their fixed price for that. There doesn’t seem to be any option to just get stuck in and see what they find like your average garage. So it’s currently a “catch 22” situation, and their emailable “help experts” don’t seem to be interested in either helping much or offering their expertise.

BACKGROUND / SYMPTOMS

I’ve had a flat battery twice in the last 3 or 4 weeks, and in the last week or two also had the engine & battery warning lights come on (steady not flashing). So Ive been trying to get my regular garage to look at it, but he keeps on booking it and then making excuses why he cant do it on the day. So I’ve now had to give up on him unfortunately.

I should also mention that Ive noticed the cars been a little bit on the sluggish side lately, and I do believe the engine ticks over with a feint slightly higher pitch in the background, although its far from obvious.

 And one other slight oddity, Ive sometimes noticed at the end of a journey that after I turn off & take my key out of the ignition there seems to be quite a few electrical whirring sounds that sound like theyre coming from somewhere behind the centre of the car instrument panel, and goes on for a minute or two.  

As I live out in the country a good 10-15 minutes’ drive from the nearest shop Ive had to go there a couple of times to stock up recently, and what tends to happen is that its just fine on the journey out, but halfway home theres a progressive power down – first the radio lights go out, then the power steering goes and the instrument panel lights go out, and the various warning lights come on just as Ive arrived home.

DTC CODE

I got a DTC code checker to see what light it could throw on the situation and it came up with one code = U1039 which it classified as “unknown”. So I looked online and found a youtube video which eventually came up with –

U1039: Cylinder 2 Misfire Detected:

 Description:  DTC P0101-P0103, P0107, P0108, P0116-P0118, P0121-P0123, P0125, P0336, P0341, P0502, P0503, P1106, P1107, P1114, P1115, P1121, P1122, P1336, P1351, P1352, P1361, P1362 and P1374 not set, engine speed from 525-5900 rpm, ECT sensor from 21-255ºF, system voltage over 10.0v, TP angle steady, and the PCM detected a crankshaft speed variation characteristic of a misfire in Cylinder 2. Note: If the misfire is severe, the MIL will flash on or off on the 1st trip!

Cause: Air leak in the intake manifold, or in the EGR or PCV system Base engine mechanical fault that affects only Cylinder 2 Fuel component fault that affects only Cylinder 2 (i. e. a dirty or sticking fuel injector) Ignition system problem (coil, plug) that affects only Cylinder 2

So, a cylinder problem would explain the sluggish performance, but would it drain the battery?

I decided to have the old battery replaced with a new one just this last Wednesday, and despite it only being a 20 minute drive back from Halfords, I was disappointed to find the radio and power steering were already failing as I arrived home, and yesterday Friday, I checked the engine over again, and on the 3^rd occasion I started her up there wasn’t enough power to get the engine to kick in!

I did some more online research last night and if I’m not mistaken that’s basically called “parasitic battery drain” and can be down to almost any electric fitting in the car.

Ive also discovered some more definitions of code U1039 –none of which were exactly the same, and some of them were very different (possibly at least partly down to being from different countries – which isn’t always obvious at first (that first one was from Slovakia, & all these others are all from the USA, I think.

>>  *UPDATE – I’ve found an exact match on a British DTC code listing for description #3 below!

The first 3 below - #2 to #4 – all refer to the speed sensors. Then #5 refers to the camshaft/cylinders. And there was also another one I’ve not copied because it was completely different to any other. Which claimed that code U1039 referred to an electrical fault—"sticking or binding ignition lock cylinder—high effort when turning ignition switch” – which I don’t seem to have an issue with.

Here they are >>>

#2 "The PCM received a signal on the SCP bus that indicated Invalid or Missing Data from the vehicle speed sensor."

#3 “SCP (J1850) Invalid Or Missing Data For Primary Id / Vehicle Speed”

 #4 “Faulty Vehicle Speed Sensor - Vehicle speed sensor harness or connectors is open or shorted or poor electrical connection

What Does it Mean? It occurs during module-to-module communication concerns. Invalid data is received from the Vehicle Speed Sensor.

What are Possible Symptoms? Engine Warning Light ON

How to Fix? Visually inspect the related wiring harness and connectors. Check for damaged components and look for broken, bent, pushed-out, or corroded connector pins.”

 

#5 specifically refers to the camshaft (cam) timing.

“In this case, if the cam timing is over-retarded, the engine light will be illuminated and the code will be set.

The problem is caused by the variable cylinder management system switching on and off during light throttle conditions, at cruising speeds, or when driving on flat roads. The constant switching causes excessive oil consumption and the trouble codes appear when oil pressure drops to the point where it can no longer operate the VCM system.

Possible Solution: The crankshaft sensor signals the fuel injection computer or the ignition control when the cylinders are firing. This causes the ignition coil to provide a spark and the injector to inject fuel into each cylinder at the right time. If either sensor isn't working correctly, the car will run rough and the engine will be less efficient. In later car models, the car's computer can usually keep the vehicle running, but the engine warning light on the dashboard goes on to warn the driver.

Repair: start with the basics like a fuel pressure and fuel volume test. Or, you can start on the electrical side by doing a voltage drop on both the power and ground connections for the fuel pump. Some shops are reporting corrosion on the fuel pump ground that reduces power and fuel pressure.”

--

>>> (Whats interesting and possibly relevant about that #3 description is that when my OBD scanner goes through its data collection routine the first 2 lines it briefly flashes up are –

J1850 VPW         Fail

J1850 PWM        Fail

Presumably these are the failed records of the 2 speed sensors this U1039 code refers to.

 

So here’s my questions  –

1.      Can anyone confirm what the UK DTC code U1039 code is?

2.      If not then it seems most likely the code refers to the speed sensor, or rather sensors. Yet how can they both be faulty? Something in the wiring ..or PCM??

3.      Could a speed sensor issue be causing my “parasitic battery drain”?? Or could that be another issue? Perhaps the cylinder/camshaft issue? O r should I go through all the fuses to see if any reduce the current draw?

4.      What should I ask clickmechanic to do?

 

Thanks for your time reading this. ANY helpful advice welcome (ASAP!)

Many thanks

Andy

PS. Apologies for such a long message, but I wanted to include everything that MIGHT be relevant to someone e.g. remind someone of a similar case in the dim & distant past :-)

Congratulations on the longest "1st" message posted I've ever seen 🤣 Welcome to the forum, and I'm sure someone sensible will be along soon...

Need to call a "Time Out" on this. 🤣

Start by getting FORScan and a vLinker FS cable so that you can get the Ford specific codes. Using FORScan you can save that epic list of DTC's if you want to.

Then clear all of the DTC's using FORScan, and then take the car for a drive if it will. Re-run the diagnostics with FORScan and see which of those DTC's have come back so we can see what is actually relevant.

Codes which begin "Ux xxx" are communication errors between modules on the Canbus network. A code starting U is not in itself a fault and should not be taken as such. In almost all cases it is as a result of a module failure or damaged wiring.

FORScan: https://forscan.org/download.html

vLinker FS cable: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vgate-vLinker-Adapter-FORScan-MS-CAN/dp/B0952P4MLP

48 minutes ago, unofix said:

Need to call a "Time Out" on this. 🤣

Start by getting FORScan and a vLinker FS cable so that you can get the Ford specific codes. Using FORScan you can save that epic list of DTC's if you want to.

Then clear all of the DTC's using FORScan, then take the car for a drive if it will. Re-run the diagnostics with FORScan and see which of those DTC's have come back so we can see what is actually relevant.

Codes which begin "Ux xxx" are communication errors between modules on the Canbus network. A code starting U is not in itself a fault and should not be taken as such. In almost all cases it is as a result of a module failure or damaged wiring.

FORScan: https://forscan.org/download.html

vLinker FS cable: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vgate-vLinker-Adapter-FORScan-MS-CAN/dp/B0952P4MLP

Thanks for your reply, I shall look into that, but I have no way of getting one today unfortunately. And my apologies if it wasnt clear from my message, but my problem isnt not knowing what DTC code I've got - I know its U1039 - the problem is merely not knowing what it means because it seems theres so many different meanings around the world for it. So I merely need to know what the official UK Ford version is (I suspect its most likely the speed sensors).

So if you happen to have your Forscan scanner handy, I'd most appreciate it if you could spare the time to let me know what it says for U1039?  

Many thanks

Andy

 

 

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Congratulations on the longest "1st" message posted I've ever seen 🤣 Welcome to the forum, and I'm sure someone sensible will be along soon...

I know,☹️ Im sorry about that, I just wanted to give as much background info as i could, and its dragged on for a while now.

Although to make it easier perhaps my simple question for kindly Focus experts everywhere should be -

Could non-reporting speed sensors and/or a misfiring cylinder possibly be responsible for the "parasitic battery drain" that I'm seeing? (and if not, any thoughts on what it might be?)

It doesn't really work like that.  Generic OBD2 codes are the same for all European vehicles.  The only way you'd get a vehicle specific code is by using vehicle specific diagnostics, such as Forscan.

The code you have is likely to be for the missing speed signal between the ABS module & PCM.  Though it may be a red herring, U codes can be easily caused by minor glitches, or even the low battery charge itself.

Tbh, I think there's a fault with the alternator or the wiring to it.  A parasitic drain doesn't happen while you're driving, the alternator should be producing more than enough power with the engine running.

6 minutes ago, FurryAndy said:

Could non-reporting speed sensors and/or a misfiring cylinder possibly be responsible for the "parasitic battery drain" that I'm seeing?

That's an easy question to answer. No !! 👍

A parasitic battery drain in nearly always caused by the Canbus network being kept awake and not shutting down. The cause can be various and normally involves a module not going to sleep after the ignition is turned off. One of the common modules to fail and cause this is the Bluetooth unit. The second most common fault is the instrument cluster remaining active, caused by poor solder joints on the circuit board.

23 minutes ago, FurryAndy said:

I know its U1039

This is a generic code for a communication error on the Canbus network. As i said earlier codes that begin "U"  are not in themself a fault, merely the result of a problem elsewhere.

8 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

It doesn't really work like that.  Generic OBD2 codes are the same for all European vehicles.  The only way you'd get a vehicle specific code is by using vehicle specific diagnostics, such as Forscan.

The code you have is likely to be for the missing speed signal between the ABS module & PCM.  Though it may be a red herring, U codes can be easily caused by minor glitches, or even the low battery charge itself.

Tbh, I think there's a fault with the alternator or the wiring to it.  A parasitic drain doesn't happen while you're driving, the alternator should be producing more than enough power with the engine running.

Thanks for your additional thoughts Tom, I appreciate that. Although I'm curious why you suspect the alternator, because I thought the opposite - i.e. even if the alternator was supplying zero charge to the battery in the 20 minutes whilst I drove back home with the brand new battery installed from halfords, surely that cant be responsible for it being flat by Friday? Or could it, (Im no expert)? 

27 minutes ago, FurryAndy said:

Although I'm curious why you suspect the alternator, because I thought the opposite - i.e. even if the alternator was supplying zero charge to the battery in the 20 minutes whilst I drove back home with the brand new battery installed from halfords, surely that cant be responsible for it being flat by Friday?

Many of the DTC's you have listed, can be, and are caused by low voltage.

Depending on what state of charge your battery started at, it would be quite possible to run it flat in quite a short time. Just as an example if your battery is 100Ah then it can supply 100A for 1 hour. While driving your car it will be using about 20A per hour. If you start to use lights, heated screen, radiator cooling fan etc. then the current used will go up considerably.

20 minutes ago, FurryAndy said:

Thanks for your additional thoughts Tom, I appreciate that. Although I'm curious why you suspect the alternator, because I thought the opposite - i.e. even if the alternator was supplying zero charge to the battery in the 20 minutes whilst I drove back home with the brand new battery installed from halfords, surely that cant be responsible for it being flat by Friday? Or could it, (Im no expert)? 

As Unofix has said, running an engine takes a lot of electrical power.  The battery is really only there to get it started, then the alternator takes over, it's not designed to be run on battery alone.

If it's a diesel with no AC, no lights, no PTC heater...and you only drive in a straight line so the electric PAS pump isn't used, then I'd expect about an hour of use...  If it's a petrol engine with the lights on, AC fan running and lots of twists and turns of the PAS pump, then I wouldn't be surprised to run it low in 20 minutes.  Then leaving it overnight with the alarm armed could easily flatten it completely, especially if it's keyless entry as well.

Being totally honest I haven't read the full OP, so there may be a few parts I've missed, but from the parts I read, it did seem like an alternator fault.

1 hour ago, unofix said:

That's an easy question to answer. No !! 👍

A parasitic battery drain in nearly always caused by the Canbus network being kept awake and not shutting down. The cause can be various and normally involves a module not going to sleep after the ignition is turned off. One of the common modules to fail and cause this is the Bluetooth unit.

Thanks for confirming that Unofix - most appreciated 😃 But are you able to answer the obvious follow-up question - How would I know if that was occurring and if so how would i best fix it? 🤔

I think the first thing I would do is check the voltage across the battery with the engine running, using a multi-meter. You should see round about 12.5 volts with the engine off, and around 14 volts when the engine is running, if the alternator is charging.

A cheap multi-meter is around £10 at Screwfix, Toolstation etc.

2 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

alternator was supplying zero charge to the battery in the 20 minutes whilst I drove back home with the brand new battery installed from halfords,

New car Batteries are not supplied fully charged.

1 hour ago, FurryAndy said:

How would I know if that was occurring and if so how would i best fix it?

As already mentioned above you need to get a multimeter and measure the battery voltage. Take a look at the table above to see what your State Of Charge is. The Bluetooth module (if fitted) is located up behind the glovebox and can be unplugged if you want to rule that out. The more I re-read your post, the more I tend to agree with Tom, that you have an alternator charging problem.

As mentioned above , can bus communication errors can throw up all kinds of false errors , only Ford or Forscan will catch them all on a Ford.

Slapping the dash directly above the cluster with the engine running can bring up errors/reactions if the cluster has defective solder. Also water into the BCM/Fusebox behind the glovebox is worth checking for. Otherwise you’re working blind without full dtcs.

Definitely alternator related Id say, could well tie in with the noise you can hear while the engine is running. Battery light is a big giveaway too.

If you were to get the voltage displayed on the dash using test mode (from memory holding in button on end of indicator stalk while turning ignition on, or search YouTube) you can see there if it’s rising to 14V or so with the engine running. More likely it’s just going to display unsupported battery voltage and you can see how it drops quickly just by turning the steering wheel. 
 

Next steps definitely to get the alternator checked/replaced then clear all the fault codes and start from clean sheet for whatever codes come up after that. 

14 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

Ive also discovered some more definitions of code U1039 –none of which were exactly the same, and some of them were very different (possibly at least partly down to being from different countries – which isn’t always obvious at first (that first one was from Slovakia, & all these others are all from the USA, I think.

DTCs are not country specific. Some DTC code ranges are generic, having identical meaning globally across all manufacturers. Other code ranges are assigned as manufacturer specific, thus left up to individual manufacturers to define, and there's no guarantee that a manufacturer's definition won't change between vehicle models / generations. You need to look at Ford specific definitions. Official lists of definitions don't tend to be freely publicly available, even for the generic set. You can find various lists online that people have tried to scavenge together, of uncertain accuracy and old leaked copies of the generic list. Scantool manufacturers either depend up these unreliable lists or pay to get official lists, in which case they may pay for only the generic one, or possibly also manufacturer specific ones, depending on how much cash they're willing to throw at it. (And of course some scantool manufacturers just use software produced by third parties so many devices will have common limitations).

Additionally not all scantools are able to communicate with all computer modules in a vehicle. Even expensive ones can be very much imperfect.

The best chance you have of having confidence you've got all of the codes from all of the modules, and correct definitions, is to use ForScan, which has been specifically built for Ford vehicles, along with a cable/adapter/dongle that is capable of accessing both the HS and MS CAN buses.

12 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

So if you happen to have your Forscan scanner handy, I'd most appreciate it if you could spare the time to let me know what it says for U1039? 

As far as I'm aware ForScan doesn't have a feature for you to just look up the definition of a specified DTC like that. Like most/all tools it will just list DTCs it detects as being present in the vehicle connected, and display the definitions for those specific DTCs. That's the only opportunity you have to see definitions.

14 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

Whats interesting and possibly relevant about that #3 description is that when my OBD scanner goes through its data collection routine the first 2 lines it briefly flashes up are –

J1850 VPW         Fail

J1850 PWM        Fail

Presumably these are the failed records of the 2 speed sensors this U1039 code refers to.

No. Whenever one computer talks to another computer it must do so in a very specific way, defined in 'communication protocols', in order for them to understand each other. There have been multiple different protocols designed and used for communicating with a vehicle over its OBD2 diagnostic port over the years. Eventually CAN bus became the most popular and the defacto standard. Some older vehicles support multiple protocols. All modern ones will be CAN-bus only. J1850-VPW and J1850-PWM are a couple of the older protocols that have become obsolete. These failures will simply be indicating that your scantool tried and failed to establish communication with your vehicle using these two older protocols. These messages have absolutely nothing at all to do with speed sensors.

14 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

O r should I go through all the fuses to see if any reduce the current draw?

Pulling fuses isn't the most ideal way to track down a parasitic draw as pulling a fuse can trigger modules to come alive. For the best way see the video below.

14 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

I did some more online research last night and if I’m not mistaken that’s basically called “parasitic battery drain” and can be down to almost any electric fitting in the car.

You've described situations of clear power loss, and then thrown in terms of "flat battery", "battery drain" and "parasitic draw", but amongst the great block of text you posted, I don't see anywhere how power is getting restored. Does everything just work again if you leave it alone for a while, or are you actually recharging the battery with a battery charger?

14 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

the engine & battery warning lights come on

The battery warning light indicates that the vehicle is operating off of battery power rather than alternator power. If the engine is running and this light is illuminated, unless incorrectly (e.g. due to the common IC cracked solder issue plaguing Mk2 Focuses), then it would seem you've got an alternator issue.

10 hours ago, FurryAndy said:

Thanks for confirming that Unofix - most appreciated 😃 But are you able to answer the obvious follow-up question - How would I know if that was occurring and if so how would i best fix it? 🤔

By following a proper parasitic draw test procedure, which essentially means turning off and locking the vehicle (tricking the vehicle into thinking things are locked that you need to remain open for test access), leaving it for an hour or so to let things gradually turn off as they normally should, then non-invasively measuring current draw to find which circuit the current is flowing out of, helping pinpoint the problematic component.

To know if parasitic draw is happening in the first place, measure battery voltage after you park it up for the night and then again in the morning to see if there's a significant difference.