Hi.

Hoping to get a bit of help here or point me in the right direction. I have a ford focus tdci 12 plate 1.6l Duratoque engine. I'm not a expert and only have limited knowledge.

It's drove fine for a year and not had issue. Over the last month I've developed a couple of issues. I'm hoping to get a idea on how to fix it before I go to a garage blindly.

Upon cold start up, it smokes slightly (id say it's possibly more blue than black), if i let it idle for a while it's more rough than it is if I setoff soon after cold startup. Also when going uphill or at high speed it starts to struggle(sounds rattly), it smokes more and engine seems likes it really is struggling. It will sometimes return to normal whilst driving at Normal speed for a while. During the time of struggling, the water temp bar goes to 0. Then returns to normal once I'm driving on slower easier roads. I also don't help myself as I do short journeys to work which I know isn't great fot a diesel engine.

Ive looked online and various issues cause these problems, so i have attached a pic of the engine to show what I found when I opened the hood. It seems to have oil or carbon build up in two places, around the front hose and around a pin towards the rear, excuse my non-mechanical language. I've circled these parts.

Upon closer inspection, underneath the front hose that is covered in some sort of residue, there are two small thin blue pipes. One seems torn away, could this be my issue?

I was hoping the images might point to a certain issue. I'm hoping to sort it out without replacing.all.sorts of.parts. would a turbo drip test help now? I've looked online and it can be various things, turbo seal leak, injectors leak, amongst other things. I would like to go the garage with a better idea, but also this may be something I could fix myself , hopefully.

Hi,

Those thick pipes are turbo boost pipes. It is expected on an older car to get a bit of oil misting around the joints. I wouldn't be too worried about that. You can try tightening the jubilee clips in case they've loosened over time.

The blue pipes are not actually pipes. They are just a sheathing over electrical wires. Those wires are for the DPF sensors. If the wires are broken that will cause a problem. However I suspect it's just the sheathing pulled away at the ends, which isn't an issue.

The biggest concern I can see on your picture is the coolant reservoir. Is there any coolant in there at all?

Hi. Thanks for the reply. The wires at the front are not wires, they look like tubes, I've been looking online, possibly dpf pressure sensor hoses? It looks like the hose is split. As it connects to the metal nozzle. One is definitely not connected at all hardly upon closer inspection.

Would split pressure sensor pipes cause these issue?

Thanks for your concern, the top of the coolant is just old and faded. It's definitely got over min of red coolant in.

In regard to where the two large jubilee clips and the misting. I'm not exactly sure what misting is, but it does have a slight soot in these two clip areas? Would this be considered normal the for older cars not nessaraly a split pipe?

Thanks

12 hours ago, CraigMM said:

Hi. Thanks for the reply. The wires at the front are not wires, they look like tubes, I've been looking online, possibly dpf pressure sensor hoses? It looks like the hose is split. As it connects to the metal nozzle. One is definitely not connected at all hardly upon closer inspection.

Would split pressure sensor pipes cause these issue?

Thanks for your concern, the top of the coolant is just old and faded. It's definitely got over min of red coolant in.

In regard to where the two large jubilee clips and the misting. I'm not exactly sure what misting is, but it does have a slight soot in these two clip areas? Would this be considered normal the for older cars not nessaraly a split pipe?

Thanks

I think we'll need a better picture of these blue pipes. The ones I can see circled on the picture are 100% wires. The top one is for the O2 Lambda sensor, the lower two are temperature sensors.

The pressure pipes are black. You can see a long section of those, running up the right hand side of your picture between the fuel filter and the battery.

If the pressure pipes are split, that would cause issues, but not really the issues that you've described.

I am pleased to hear there's plenty of coolant in it. That was much more likely to cause the issues described. Engines rattle and struggle when the top end overheats. And the fact that your temp reading drops to 0 suggested that the coolant temp sensor was completely dry at that point, with coolant having been sucked into other areas and away from it. For now I would have to suggest that points to a faulty thermostat instead. Though it is a slightly odd symptom.

Smoke on cold start wouldn't bother me too much, that's potentially just a weak glowplug. As it runs better when warmed up, that again points towards glowplugs. The injectors are a known weak point of this engine, and they would also cause rough running, so I wouldn't be surprised if the garage diagnose those as faulty.

Misting on boost pipes is just as it sounds, a fine mist of oil gets blown out of the pipes when they are under high pressure with the turbo boosting hard. That oil can mix with dirt and grit to seem sooty, but there shouldn't be any actual soot in the area at all. Boost pipes get covered in a thin layer of oil inside due to the engine crank breather pipe. In a perfect world the oil would be fully separated before it reaches the intake air, but we don't live in a perfect world, and the older the car gets, the more oil will end up passing through the breather system.