Went to work today absolutely fine and parkd up and then came out and theres a steering lock malfunction message so car wont start, went and bought a new battery from halfords as thats all that was open and went through the BCM reset and still nothing, anyone else had this happen to their motor?

No warning or anything, surely this also has to be a safety isssue if this is just going to totally disable your car.

I think Ford will say it's not a safety issue as you can't it drive anywhere.  In fact it's more secure now than it's ever been.

This has happened to a few members with later generation cars (MK8 Fiesta and Mk4 Focus) but I haven't seen it happen on an older model so may not be the same fault.  I seem to remember they had to unplug and reseat one or more plugs on the BCM.

It may just be that the steering lock has genuinely failed in your case.  It is only disengaged when you go to start so won't show up during a drive.

Cheers for the reply Tom, I had the RAC out on Thursday who sat in the car in his dirty kit without a seat cover and then they brayed the lock unit with a 3/4 extension then ragged the column about like a mad thing then just said yeah its broke and it needs to go to ford while lying against the car and putting his tablet on the roof which set me off anyway. Probably why he never went further into it.

 

I initially with it being a damp day Wednesday disconnected plugs from the fuse box and sprayed a bit WD40 type stuff in the connections and checked fuse 34 which is for the ESL but still parked on the street outside of work. 

Seen on ebay an emulator to bypass the ESL for 50 quid so thats coming tomorrow hopefully and will plug that in and see if it starts.

Bit of a pisser really as had the car nearly 4 months and 2 breakdowns compared to my 2007 S60 volvo that I had for 10 year that went without a hiccup apart from it really really liked a good drink of diesel.