Hi all, 

Just wanting to know if I'm going mad or not, my MIL has been having an issue with the Engine Management Light coming on intermittently on her Fiesta for the past couple of months. The car drives fine, but she's finally been able to take it into Ford for diagnostics.

They have told her the issue is with the Timing Belt, but I was under the impression that these engines are Timing Chain driven, with a wet oil pump belt - so I'm not sure what's going on. She had the same feedback from another garage as well, which is very strange to me so I'm questioning my sanity!

Can someone please confirm if the Fiesta 2021 mHEV engine is chain or belt driven?

Chain for Cams

Wet belt for oil pump

1 hour ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

Can someone please confirm if the Fiesta 2021 mHEV engine is chain or belt driven?

Are you 100% certain it is an MHEV - what power is it? (100ps versions retained the wet belt as far as we know.)

They may be meaning oil pump belt.  We're seeing an increasing number of those fail on chain engines, although oddly more so on Facebook than here.

15 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

They may be meaning oil pump belt.  We're seeing an increasing number of those fail on chain engines, although oddly more so on Facebook than here.

Okay, so for a bit more information: 

It's definitely an mHEV, it has the hybrid badge on the back.

She's had this problem for a few months now, and had been clearing the error code manually since it really started. She's a driving instructor, so is doing a fair few miles every day, and the car is on around 51k miles now. 

If it's the oil belt, would this sound consistent? Looking at the 'Ecoboom', surely it wouldn't have lasted for a good few thousand miles?

6 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

Okay, so for a bit more information: 

It's definitely an mHEV, it has the hybrid badge on the back.

She's had this problem for a few months now, and had been clearing the error code manually since it really started. She's a driving instructor, so is doing a fair few miles every day, and the car is on around 51k miles now. 

If it's the oil belt, would this sound consistent? Looking at the 'Ecoboom', surely it wouldn't have lasted for a good few thousand miles?

It really depends on what the fault code is.  The oil pump belt could be slowly degrading and blocking the oil pump, causing issues with the VCT system, which may not be noticeable under gentle driving.  They can last for many months and thousands of miles like that.  It's only when the teeth suddenly strip that the engine looses all lubrication and completely fails.

3 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

It really depends on what the fault code is.  The oil pump belt could be slowly degrading and blocking the oil pump, causing issues with the VCT system, which may not be noticeable under gentle driving.  They can last for many months and thousands of miles like that.  It's only when the teeth suddenly strip that the engine looses all lubrication and completely fails.

Thanks for the information, that correlates with what she's saying as it goes into limp mode sometimes at higher speeds too.

Ford have quoted ~£700 to diagnose the issue and ~£2k to fix the issue - does that sound about right?

7 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

Thanks for the information, that correlates with what she's saying as it goes into limp mode sometimes at higher speeds too.

Ford have quoted ~£700 to diagnose the issue and ~£2k to fix the issue - does that sound about right?

Is the car still under manufacturers warranty?  Should be 3 years or 60k miles.

If the oil pump belt is degrading but hasn't actually snapped then the repair is basically the same as the standard belt replacement, plus a bit more cleaning.  £2k sounds about right for that.  Though £700 to diagnose seems like a bit of a p-take to me.  Could buy an entire brand new wetbelt engine for under £3k.  I'm not sure how much more the chain engine costs though, Pumaspeed aren't offering those yet.

4 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Is the car still under manufacturers warranty?  Should be 3 years or 60k miles.

If the oil pump belt is degrading but hasn't actually snapped then the repair is basically the same as the standard belt replacement, plus a bit more cleaning.  £2k sounds about right for that.  Though £700 to diagnose seems like a bit of a p-take to me.  Could buy an entire brand new wetbelt engine for under £3k.  I'm not sure how much more the chain engine costs though, Pumaspeed aren't offering those yet.

It's just outside of warranty unfortunately 😞

Thanks for the information, I have a Fiesta of my own (2023, MK8.5) with the same engine. I do fairly low mileage on a yearly basis so fingers crossed it lasts me a few years yet.

How common would you say this problem is?

1 minute ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

It's just outside of warranty unfortunately 😞

Thanks for the information, I have a Fiesta of my own (2023, MK8.5) with the same engine. I do fairly low mileage on a yearly basis so fingers crossed it lasts me a few years yet.

How common would you say this problem is?

I thought that may be the case.   If it's got full service history (oil change every 18k due to the high mileage), they should push for a 'goodwill gesture' towards the repair.  Though legally Ford have no obligation to provide one.

Very difficult to say how common it is.  Even around a year ago I don't think I'd seen more than one, and was advising that on here at the time.  But this year I have seen several across various platforms.  Still very few on here, but many on Facebook.  Perhaps a different type of driver over here?

Low mileage is worse unfortunately.  Moisture builds in up in the oil which accelerates degradation of the belt.  Ideally the engine needs to be fully warmed up regularly to burn off all of that moisture.

4 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I thought that may be the case.   If it's got full service history (oil change every 18k due to the high mileage), they should push for a 'goodwill gesture' towards the repair.  Though legally Ford have no obligation to provide one.

Very difficult to say how common it is.  Even around a year ago I don't think I'd seen more than one, and was advising that on here at the time.  But this year I have seen several across various platforms.  Still very few on here, but many on Facebook.  Perhaps a different type of driver over here?

Low mileage is worse unfortunately.  Moisture builds in up in the oil which accelerates degradation of the belt.  Ideally the engine needs to be fully warmed up regularly to burn off all of that moisture.

Would you advise getting rid of the car before it goes then? Feeling slightly concerned now...

1 minute ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

Would you advise getting rid of the car before it goes then? Feeling slightly concerned now...

There's no easy answer to that one.  It will depend on each individuals circumstances.  The equivalent options are also fairly limited.  Small modern Peugeot, Citroen and Vauxhall engines have wetbelts for example.  And cars without wetbelts often have reliability issues in other areas.

I mean, it's not that low mileage (~11k), plus it's under warranty so I'll probably give it a couple of years and see what happens. It's a lovely car, would be a shame to get rid of it just because of this issue 

9 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

I mean, it's not that low mileage (~11k), plus it's under warranty so I'll probably give it a couple of years and see what happens. It's a lovely car, would be a shame to get rid of it just because of this issue 

I wouldn't say ~10k a year is low.  But it also depends on how it's driven.  If it's parked up all week and only driven at weekends, that's likely to be worse than a car being driven every day despite the same weekly mileage.  It would be worth having an oil & filter change every 12 months if you intend to keep the car for a while.

1 minute ago, TomsFocus said:

I wouldn't say ~10k a year is low.  But it also depends on how it's driven.  If it's parked up all week and only driven at weekends, that's likely to be worse than a car being driven every day despite the same weekly mileage.  It would be worth having an oil & filter change every 12 months if you intend to keep the car for a while.

Yeah, that's my plan anyway - regular services and oil changes are definitely required!

52 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Very difficult to say how common it is.  Even around a year ago I don't think I'd seen more than one, and was advising that on here at the time. 

A puzzler. It does seem odd for this to be cropping up now, given that the engine has been in the Focus Mk 4 since 2018, and the 1.5 with a similar chain cam/oil pump belt set up has been around in various models for a similar time.

I never felt comfortable with the official service interval for this sort of set up (though it does have "intelligent oil life monitoring" fwiw so should flag up if earlier changes are required).

Had annual oil & filter changes in my previous 1.0 and the ST has a 12 month service interval anyway.

One would hope Ford look favourably on a goodwill gesture in a case like this.

 

 

6 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Is the car still under manufacturers warranty?

Don't Ford have some special 'Get out of Jail free' warranty terms for cars that are used by driving schools ?

11 minutes ago, unofix said:

Don't Ford have some special 'Get out of Jail free' warranty terms for cars that are used by driving schools ?

I don't think so.  They specifically prohibit things such as racing or rallying so would expect to see driving tuition in that list if they did.

https://www.ford.co.uk/support/how-tos/warranty/warranties-and-coverage/what-is-covered-in-and-excluded-from-the-ford-warranty

11 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

They specifically prohibit things such as racing or rallying so would expect to see driving tuition in that list if they did.

The Ford Direct warranty does exclude driving school cars, perhaps that's what was in my mind 🤔

https://www.ford.co.uk/content/dam/guxeu/uk/documents/home/buy-and-protect/warranties/FD-Terms-Conditions-Car-11-08.pdf

Just an update on this, she's been advised to get rid of the car ASAP (using something like WBAC) as the costs to repair the car are too high due to potential engine damage due to being starved of oil.

Apparently she'd have had more detail available to diagnose the issue earlier had she been aware of the FordPass app - something I have but wasn't aware was a feature of the app. Between the two of us, we've now had 3 Fiesta's over the past 3-4 years, with no-one making us aware that this is a feature we should be using.

So if someone stumbles across this thread when researching issues - please check there first!

I'm surprised they were never told about it.  My dealer forced me to sign up to it before they'd even deliver the car...

It doesn't detail faults though.  Would just have said 'engine fault' or words to that effect.  It's Forscan that you need to diagnose faults.  That's effectively a knockoff of the dealers diagnostic tool and provides very specific fault codes which Ford dealers don't want the rest of us to access.

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I'm surprised you were never told about it. 

Yes, I got the vibe the dealers were under some pressure from Ford to push it. Mine just ran through it though, and didn't push it. Certainly I didn't get the impression it had any diagnostic or alert functions, beyond what the "in-car" messages would tell you.

6 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Yes, I got the vibe the dealers were under some pressure from Ford to push it. Mine just ran through it though, and didn't push it. Certainly I didn't get the impression it had any diagnostic or alert functions, beyond what the "in-car" messages would tell you.

I think that's what I got when I bought my Fiesta a few months ago - just a patter of 'Oh and there's an app that can help you with stuff' - without explaining the importance of what the 'stuff' actually is!

6 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

I think that's what I got when I bought my Fiesta a few months ago - just a patter of 'Oh and there's an app that can help you with stuff' - without explaining the importance of what the 'stuff' actually is!

Ford's own "blurb" doesn't mention anything beyond tyre pressures and fluid levels:

https://www.ford.co.uk/technology/connectivity/fordpass

Did anyone get more detail on the "stuff"?

Mine just kept saying the battery was flat...which is standard for the Mk4 Focus anyway.  

This is the type of engine fault warning that it can show.  Slightly more detail than the simple 'service now' but not enough to use for diagnosis.