Hi all , I've got a mk4 1.5 diesel ecoblue focus and the oil life is down to 2 % and I have a message on the app and on the dash to change oil soon , I've only had the car for 3 months ,the dealer said it had been serviced but I'm not so sure ,anyway my question is what is the oil life thing ? I've been told It measures the quality of the oil ,is this just a money maker by Ford just to get you to change the oil more often ,do I change the oil between services ,does anyone have any experience with this .

Some engines have an oil quality sensor, others calculate quality using number of engine starts, number of DPF regens etc.

Did the dealer provide any evidence of servicing?  It's possible they just forgot to reset it.

I would contact the dealer and tell them about the warning.  Hopefully they'll tell you they can prove it was serviced and just not reset.  If they can't prove it, perhaps suggest they could cover the cost of an oil change for you...

This engine does require frequent oil changes due to a small capacity sump and a lot of DPF regens to meet emissions limits.  So yes I would expect to have oil changes done outside of the routine servicing.  (Routine servicing is air filter & fuel filter roughly every 4 years).

Thanks Tom for your great advice as always. They have stamped the book but not written anything on it , When I bought it after a week of me owning  it I had to take it back and it had to have a new dpf and some sensors replaced on warranty which took a couple of months for them to get the parts from Ford so it wasn't driven for about 2 months , I think I'll just get the oil changed just so I know it's done , just out of curiosity have you had any experience with the in and out service centre , or any quick fit type place or would you recommend taking it to Ford 

1 hour ago, Des65 said:

Thanks Tom for your great advice as always. They have stamped the book but not written anything on it , When I bought it after a week of me owning  it I had to take it back and it had to have a new dpf and some sensors replaced on warranty which took a couple of months for them to get the parts from Ford so it wasn't driven for about 2 months , I think I'll just get the oil changed just so I know it's done , just out of curiosity have you had any experience with the in and out service centre , or any quick fit type place or would you recommend taking it to Ford 

It doesn't matter who changes the Oil as long as they use the correct Ford Specification one for your Engine but you need to make sure that whoever does it can change the Oil Life back to 100%.

From memory you used to be able to do it by yourself for that Engine via the Dashboard but Ford disabled that with a PCM Update because the Calculated Oil Life was coming up very quickly for new cars still under Warranty and owners were just resetting it to 100% instead of changing the Oil.

So I can't reset it on dash ? I think it said you could in the hand book but you say that's been disabled ! Thanks for the heads up I'll have to look into that 👍

4 minutes ago, Des65 said:

So I can't reset it on dash ? I think it said you could in the hand book but you say that's been disabled ! Thanks for the heads up I'll have to look into that 👍

You could originally, and maybe you still can if your car was never given the Software Update.

I think you can do it with FORScan, mine is the Petrol version and it was never changed on that car because the Oil Life was never a problem on that car or the 2.0 Diesel as far as I know.

I remember a thread on here about it where someone was looking for a workaround to change it but I don't think they ever found one. Other 1.5 Diesel owners may be able to advise you on what the current situation is.

7 minutes ago, Tizer said:

because the Oil Life was never a problem on that car or the 2.0 Diesel as far as I know.

My 2.0 EcoBlue still has it in the IPC menu, but it doesn't work when you try to reset it. Perhaps it never worked, but it certainly has never worked since the car was serviced (twice) by a Ford dealer.

Just checked my Ford app. Oil life 7% so time to get it booked in for a service.

1 minute ago, unofix said:

My 2.0 EcoBlue still has it in the IPC menu, but it doesn't work when you try to reset it. Perhaps it never worked, but it certainly has never worked since the car was serviced (twice) by a Ford dealer.

They must have removed it from the 2.0 Diesel as well then. I'm surprised because the information I have is that they only removed it from the 1.5 Diesel because as Tom said earlier, the Oil did not stay clean for long.

Easy enough to reset the oil life indicator when you don't have the option in the cluster. Ign on, then brake and accelerator pedal down and wait a fair while. A minute or so. You won't see or hear any notification of a reset. Ign off , release pedals then ign on and check life has reset. 

9 hours ago, iantt said:

You won't see or hear any notification of a reset.

That's an excellent piece of programming...  

13 hours ago, Des65 said:

just out of curiosity have you had any experience with the in and out service centre , or any quick fit type place or would you recommend taking it to Ford 

Must admit I'd never heard of In&Out.  Looks like there aren't any branches near me.

I've had poor experiences with both main dealers and chain stores so I'm not the best person to advise on that.  I would just agree with Tizer, it doesn't really matter who does an oil change as long as you trust them to use the correct oil.

Just an update and for anyone looking for a quick oil and filter change , I went to Halfords service centre as they could do it on Saturday morning and charged £147 vs Kwik fit at £170.95  , so it's done now they seemed to a good job and they reset the oil life .

I own a 2019 Ford Focus Mk4 with a 1.5L EcoBoost engine. Recently, I've noticed some shaking and rumbling noises, and upon inspection, I found that the engine oil has turned black. My mechanic has recommended switching from the manufacturer-specified 0W-20 oil to 0W-30. Is this advisable?

1 hour ago, goldenpollen said:

I own a 2019 Ford Focus Mk4 with a 1.5L EcoBoost engine. Recently, I've noticed some shaking and rumbling noises, and upon inspection, I found that the engine oil has turned black. My mechanic has recommended switching from the manufacturer-specified 0W-20 oil to 0W-30. Is this advisable?

I doubt that your shaking and rumbling is being caused by the type of Oil you are using.

The UK Specification Oil is for a 5W-20 Oil as follows, although I believe there may be an alternative new specification that is a Castrol 0W-20 with a different Ford Specification Number.

I would not think it was wise to use anything other than what is specified.

Capacities

 

Variant	Including the Oil Filter	Excluding the Oil Filter
All.	5.05 L (1.1 gal)	4.55 L (1.0 gal)

 

Note:   The quantity of engine oil required to raise the indicated level on the dipstick from minimum to maximum is 0.7 L (0.2 gal).

Materials

Name	Specification
Ford-Castrol Magnatec	WSS-M2C948-B

Engine Oil Top-Up

If you are unable to find engine oil that meets the specification defined by WSS-M2C948-B, you can top-up with a SAE 5W-20 engine oil that is defined by ACEA A5/B5.

Note:   Do not use more than 0.5 L (0.1 gal) of the alternative engine oil between scheduled service intervals

 

3 hours ago, goldenpollen said:

I own a 2019 Ford Focus Mk4 with a 1.5L EcoBoost engine. Recently, I've noticed some shaking and rumbling noises, and upon inspection, I found that the engine oil has turned black. My mechanic has recommended switching from the manufacturer-specified 0W-20 oil to 0W-30. Is this advisable?

Did you mean EcoBlue instead of EcoBoost?