Thought I would post this to see if anyone else has had the same problem

Fiesta Titanium tdci 95ps, reg sept 1 2010, 7800 miles almost 10 weeks old

Today I was driving north bound on the M42 with cruise on at 70, then suddenly I could feel the engine hunting / missing a beat.

3 seconds later the following happened:

Cruise control switched off (unable to activate again, radio controls still worked)

Speedo went to 0 and stayed @ 0

ABS warning light switched on

ABS activity light switched on (the one that flashes when you wheel spin)

Power steering light switched on and deactivated steering assist.

Reduced engine performance (limp home mode?) just managed to do 72mph (says my sat nav)

It took 3 engine restarts in the dealer’s car park before all engine lights had gone out and the power steering to kick back in. I’m glad the steering failure happened on the straight of a motorway if it had been in town or on a bend I could of been in an accident. Is this another Watchdog story?

I drove like this for another 20 minutes to the local dealer and booked it in immediately and was told I was lucky the car did not break down on the road side and advised not to drive it again.

As a side note also today while listening to the radio all speakers failed (no sound)except LH front speaker which sounded heavily distorted even on the bare minimum volume to listen to some music. I switched the radio off and on with no change. The only way I fixed this was to turn the ignition off and on....

I was going to wait until its first service but have also asked the dealer to investigate a knocking sound coming from the engine bay. On first start up in the morning I can hear the sound, it sounds like a loose engine mount bolt knocking on tick over. This sound goes away when way when warm unless you are parked facing up a small hill. You can also hear a similar metallic knocking sound when pulling off in 1st initially. I think this is all linked and is something to do with the torque reaction engine mount but could be wrong.

Can anyone help me on the above? Could I reject the car based on the steering failure today? and ask for a refund?

i dont have much clue about mechanics...

i would say you are very unlucky...(lucky about the motorway bit)

I think every now and again a bad fiesta is made (off one- like a gone off tomato lol) and youve prob bought it... Not that that makes it acceptable...

You will have to give them a chance to rectify the fault/s before you can reject the car I reckon. 7800 miles in 10 weeks! that's almost as much as some as the delivery vans at my firm do.

I have exactly the same problem with my stereo randomly going to just passenger speaker, do you have the new sony head unit or the standard, perhaps anyone could comment if they have similar problems.

if you have the sony unit playing with the DSP works on mine changing between DSP all and DSP driver makes it come back to life, i believe therefore the problem is software.

Anthony

Update

Just had my car back tonight after 1 week.

Speedo / ABS problem turned out to be a failure wheel bearing, Dealer said on replacement the old bearing had damaged the knuckle so had a new one of those too.

Engine knock

Loose aircon pipe vibrating on the gearbox they also told me that the engine was recalibrated, to get rid of the knock and improve fuel economy????

Radio issue

No solution as fault was not reproducible at the dealer

As the knuckle was changed I assume the tracking was done, I noticed the steering wheel slight off set while driving straight ahead, need to book it in again to have this sorted.

Overall I am very impressed with the level of support @ Bristol Street West Brom, I can not speak highly enough from sales to aftercare