Hi there,

Am getting spurious issues with intermittent EML, central locking, red snowflake with brake fluid light simultaneously coming on, sometimes amber airbag light as well.  It's like Blackpool illuminations lol.  Mainly seems to be happening when accelerating or braking hard.  I have a Sykes Pickavant ACR and when doing component test, the brake switch is not being recognised as being activated - just states 'OFF'.  The side repeaters and full beam indication on the IC only work when the red snowflake and brake fluid light are not illuminated.  Brake fluid level absolutely fine and the lights still come on even above 4 degrees c.

Plugged in Forscan and getting the following codes, thinking it may well be the IC dry solder issue but would really really appreciate any advice.  Need the car for holiday and will be going in two weeks with an MOT beforehand (expires while parked up at airport car park).

Battery has just been replaced due to a continuous parasitic battery drain which was caused by a USB-C multi plug adaptor being kept plugged in to the permanent live cigarette lighter socket, even while engine was off.  The Sykes recorded the U0140 code which I deleted but it then came back on a test drive with the EML coming back.

I'd agree that looks like the cluster solder fault.

Thanks Tom, might take it off.  No idea if it's already been done.  Have owned the car for 18 months.

2 hours ago, Mrktn said:

No idea if it's already been done. 

The infamous dry solder joints is a common problem on many Fords produced between 2004 and 2012. They started using lead free solder (to save the planet ) which has been a totally failure.

In order to do a proper reliable repair to the instrument cluster, firstly the old lead free solder has to be removed from the connector pins, and also from some of the larger components on the circuit board. Then the tracks and connector pins need cleaned and re-soldered using a 60/40 lead tin solder with a flux in order to get a good quality, low resistance electrical connection.

Some people have attempted to do this repair themselves simply by re-soldering over the top of the existing solder. In most cases this doesn't work, or at best it will work for a few months before the problem returns.

I'd suggest sending the instrument cluster away for repair to @rd457 he charges between £55 and £85 depending on what needs doing. The turn around time is normally between 1 and 2 days.