Good evening everyone...

 

There's no easy way to sumerise the depth of the Merde I find myself in.

 

I've been reading the horror stories online about this message, and I have to say I'm not confident of finding a solution.....I'm in a very sticky situation here so here goes.

 

I've owned my 2016 1.0 eco boost cmax since 2020 (bought it at 40k km and its currently running at 103k km....Never had an issue until now.

I service my car yearly. 

It's my 5 Yr olds taxi so it needs to be top notch!

Went on holiday this summer (serviced pre departure)

Drove from Brussels to La Rochelle then from La Rochelle to the Camaergue in the South of France (1500km).

About 300km from our destination I got the SERVICE ENGINE NOW message and it entered LIMP home mode on the highway (scary stuff). We were stuck on the highway in an unbeliveable thunderstorm and i genuinely feared for our lives)

We limped to our destination arriving hours late and immediately set about finding a garage (which we did and took our car there the following day)

They informed us that there were no error messages that they could see and if it persisted to contact a Ford dealer.

No further messages appeared....

Following week we drove from the South of France to the Rhone Alp region (literally under Mont Blanc)

The steep twisting mountain roads did not do my car ANY good and once again SERVICE ENGINE NOW was displayed.....this time no matter how many times I stopped and started the message persisted and we had ZERO power it would struggle along in first gear!

Spoke to a garage (through my insurance) who said they would come and pick it up so as of tonight we are stranded half way up an Alp with no vehicle to get around in let alone get home next week.

I'm desperate my insurance implies they will give us a courtesy car but as of now they haven't been back in touch (Saturday night in rural France....I'm thinking we are on our own)

I need help and NO I don't have any access to code readers etc.

 

Please help us!

 

You need a Ford specific code reader.  Can probably order one online to be delivered to your holiday location next day.

You're stuck until Monday. Thank heaven it is this week and not last. Enjoy the day where you are.

Check your travel insurance and see if they can help you tomorrow. Find out what they are prepared to do regarding either repatriating your car or covering your travel expenses to get home and then recover the car when it is repaired.

 You are at the other end of the country. I have Forscan but I am in Mayenne. See if the local  Feu Vert sells a code reader. Not optimal but in an emergency, all bets are off.  If you can at least get it out of limp mode to get home it will help but if the oil pressure light is on, the car is not safe to drive.  Don't. Check the oil level and that of the coolant. You have covered a good distance, it needs to be checked. You mentioned bad weather, it MIGHT be due to water in the electrics and steep mountain roads are  going to put the car under unfamiliar loads which may upset fuel/air settings. They shouldn't but it could happen . A 1.0 Ecoboost has to work hard to pull a C max along so if you can get it going, go very gently . Worst case, leave the car where it is, hire something to get you to the nearest airport and come back when the car is fixed. The world outside your head doesn't care why you need the car and  des merdes arrivent.

 

Have you been having any issues with the cars lights?

check for water ingress around the boot area and check wiring and fuses.

make sure there is no exposed wiring, through the sheathing

12 hours ago, The Sheriff said:

Have you been having .....

You're responding to a OPW I'm afraid 😟 

An OPW ?? 

6 hours ago, The Sheriff said:

An OPW ?? 

What's an OPW?

OPW = One Post Wonder. Someone who asks a question as their first post on the forum and then never returns to say if the suggestions are helpful, thank anyone or answer any questions which have been asked.

Don't be that person. 🙂 

Good afternoon,

 

My car was only returned to Brussels yesterday?

I went to the Ford dealership in Schaerbeek to be told the reason my car displayed the "Service engine now" message was because it had burnt out 3 spark plugs.

They ran a diagnostic (200 euros)

They spent a couple of hours inspecting the engine (200 euros)

And they charged me 35 euros a spark plug.

A simple way to spend 500 euros.

After carefully driving it home and parking up, so far, so good.

I'll keep you posted if this has fixed everything.

(I did by the connector to my car so if anything goes wrong again I can run my own diagnostic)

Thanks everyone for your advise and assistance.

I appreciate it.

OPW my *****! Between this site and the Cmax owners club, I post when I have questions and queries. (My rear lights, the tire pressure sensors and some weird rubber item when it fell out of the engine bay..... I'm fill of stupid questions)

I appreciate the knowledge these sites can hold.

Seems some people are only happy when they are antagonising people.....very sad.

Anyway thank you everyone...

Thanks for the follow up.

How many miles were there on the plugs?