C-MAX TDCi Power Loss

[c-maxxer]

Ref my post of 5th January saying my car was in the dealership - for the FIFTEENTH time looking at the hesitation and going into limp mode problem.

Dealer finally said it was ready yesterday. Was charged £46.00 parts only for a new MAP sensor (manifold absolute pressure). Dealer said Ford Technical had been consulted, fault found and rectified. I drove 10 yards in the car and could tell there was "absoulutely" no difference.

Dealer then says - after me making a scene in service reception - they would refit the old parts and give me a refund for what they've done. No mention of a fix. This is on a car that broke down on three out of four long trips over Christmas.

Spoke to Ford Customer service who've promised to get Ford Technical involved again.

I'm out of patience. Car is going to be traded in, which is going to cost me £thousands, but I'm now resigned to it.

In my view this hesitation problem with the early CVT auto's is an issue that Ford are knowingly doing nothing to resolve - because there are too few owners affected. They don't give a stuff for those affected.

[Mark1971]

c-maxxer,

I hope you have emailed Watchdog reference this as this week they reported similar faults with 2.2 Vauxhall Vectra's, (fortunately I've just purchased a 3.0), so they need to be made aware by as many C-Max owners as possible that this is a problem with these early CVT's also.

I think you are doing the right thing. I only took my car to the garage 4 times to realise that they had no idea what the fault was and as Ford HQ were not bothered on the several times when I had contacted them, the C-Max had to go. You will have lost a lot of money part-ex'ing the car in but look at all the benefits you'll have - you will no longer be putting yourself at risk each time you get into the car, you will be able to chill out and enjoy driving again (I certainly have done) and although you may have lost money on your C-Max, you will be able to get yourself a much better built, reliable car and at cost price thanks to the current financial climate.

It is a shame, put aside the creaks from the doors and rattles from the dashboard, the C-Max could have been a good car if only it had not been engineered by muppets on a budget. Have you noticed the vanity lights behind the visors and that they are the same on both sides, just one is flipped over so that it switches in the opposite direction? Cheap, tacky and really sums the car up.

Go now, get looking on Auto Trader and turn your back on Ford for good. You have given them far too much money for nothing and what have you got to show for it? If you're like me, years off your life through stress and more grey hair!

Take care,

Mark

[c-maxxer]

Car has been traded for a Skoda Roomster petrol auto. Runs like a dream. My biggest regret is dumping my problems on whoever buys my old car.

Sorry Ford, but my experience over the last 18 months means I ain't buying your products again for a long time. You've got problems with C-Max CVT autos - why don't you admit it ?

[adamnlauren]

Hi guys,

Just registered as I was lead to this discussion via a google search. I have owned a 54 reg C-Max 1.6 TDCI CVT for just over a year. I had the hesitation problems (1500 to 200 revs) soon after buying the car from a private dealer and it would register a transmission malfunction and go into limp home mode until I restarted the engine.

The Ford dealer sent it back the first time with no explanation but the second time they changed the EGR valvue which I have since learnt is a common fault. A year down the line and the problem returned with avengence. This time they changed the EGR valvue again as well as the mass air sensor but said they were still getting the transmission malfunction and I needed to take it to an Automatic Gearbox specialist. I did and he said it was an ECU problem. Went to another Ford garage and they had it for over a week. At one point they thought it was the ECU but now they are saying it is a faulty solonoid in the gearbox and they need to replace the whole thing for £5K.

I can probably drive it around for another 10 months but have a feeling this is only going to get worse. Realy interested in how Mickeej gets on as £700 sounds a lot better than £5K. Have lost faith in computer diagnostics and Ford garages and am starting to feel the rage slowly build.

Any links to other useful forums or info would be really appreciated.

Cheers

Adam

[ginner999]

Spent £2000 looking for the fault on mine.

Replacement parts fitted as they were finding the fault

Full set of injectors.

New battery

Fuel filter

Emptied tank of contents

Flush out fuel pipes

Re programme ECU

Full set of injectors again as they said the ECU messed up the first set becauseit was not programmed right (no charge )

and a whole lot of labour

Any how they had the car for three months not weeks yeah I mean MONTHS

They gave me the CHOCKS AWAY GINNER ! and off I flew.

ok I did gain three weeks of fabulous trouble free motoring when one dark evening Stop start

So up went the bonnet and out came my torchbut the battery on the torch was low and it did nt last long whoppee gud!

The bestest timing I could have wished for.

In thr darkness around what appears to be a soliednoid were only to be seen in the dark were short circuiting proofs!

Replaced the partand ok to date.

Question is £2000 got spent on on parts and labour that did not fix it Jim!

I t was a flat battery that eventually repaired the fault.

So you gentle folk out there dont go looking for your faults first thing next moring.

Put on your boots and take out your batteries on the torch and happy searching!

[philangst]

Spent £2000 looking for the fault on mine.

Replacement parts fitted as they were finding the fault

Full set of injectors.

New Battery

Fuel filter

Emptied tank of contents

Flush out fuel pipes

Re programme ECU

Full set of injectors again as they said the ECU messed up the first set becauseit was not programmed right (no charge )

and a whole lot of labour

Any how they had the car for three months not weeks yeah I mean MONTHS

They gave me the CHOCKS AWAY GINNER ! and off I flew.

ok I did gain three weeks of fabulous trouble free motoring when one dark evening Stop start

So up went the bonnet and out came my torchbut the battery on the torch was low and it did nt last long whoppee gud!

The bestest timing I could have wished for.

In thr darkness around what appears to be a soliednoid were only to be seen in the dark were short circuiting proofs!

Replaced the par tand ok to date.

Question is £2000 got spent on on parts and labour that did not fix it Jim!

I t was a flat battery that eventually repaired the fault.

So you gentle folk out there dont go looking for your faults first thing next moring.

Put on your boots and take out your batteries on the torch and happy searching!

Was thinking of buying one of these until I discovered this thread. Some idiot wrote off (didnt stop!) my Skoda Fabia last week in the snow so I need another car! . I would like an auto but as I now have no NCB the 2L petrol auto will cost too much to insure.I need something reliable though and this doesn't seem to be it with the CVT box

Ginner, is yours now fixed then? What part did you replace? Was it the solenoid?

[Mort]

Hi all

If only I discovered this thread before buying a C-Max 1.6 CVT Auto almost 4 weeks ago, the car had done just over 15500 miles and is on an 04 plate cost £5999, in the last 3 weeks its spent most of its time at the dealer where I bought it with them trying to discover the loss of power and car going into 'limp mode'

So far they have:

Reset the ECU

Upgraded the firmware/software

Replaced the MAP sensor ('Mr Mort car will be fine now' they said)

Collected the car on saturday and today took it for a lengthy drive to make sure all was ok, like hell it was after 40 miles total loss of power had to pull over turn her off leave for a minute and start her back up to drive home with it working ok.

A friend of mine has suggested a fuel pump problem but after reading this thread im not convinced, so back to Ford's tomorrow to hand them the keys back and get a replacement or give me my money back. Don't get me wrong when this car is working she's a fantastic drive, if only it didn't break down.

If anybody has found a fix please let me know.

Regards

Mort

:angry: :angry: :angry:

[Mark1971]

Mort,

I feel for you. I bought a lovely model, Zetec but with heated leather seats and when it worked, drove lovely. But you can see from this thread, it is a known problem and like the rest of us, only looked into the issue once online once we had experienced the fault.

As it has only been 4 weeks, try and get your money back as you'll be throwing good money after bad as you can see from mine, c-maxxers and other c-max owners reports. Feel free to print off my receipts and use in your defence that this is a fault that Ford do not know how to fix together with this thread. I'd also recommend letting Watchdog as they'll only pursue a story if they receive several complaints. We need to get the message out there to stop others making the same mistake that we have.

It is a shame, we have all said the same 'It would be a gorgeous car - if only it worked!'

If you get your money back, I went for a Vauxhall Vectra, some great bargains to be with those and C-Maxxer bought a Skoda Roomster which I believe he is also pleased with. I personally won't be touching Ford again for some time although I had received crap service and attitudes from Ford staff also.

Good luck

[Mark1971]

P.S.

If it weren't for the mileage, I'd swear you had my last car!

We had to pull over 4 times (twice each way) on the busy A1M and reset the car - just how dangerous was that!!

[Mort]

Woohoo!! problem solved :P

Took the car to Ford dealer this morning and she's gone, was told to choose any car we wanted up to the value of what we had paid, so wifey decided she wanted a Citreon Picasso 06 plate just under 10500 miles.

Mark

Thanks for the sympathy and to all the early model CVT owners out there I hope you dont get the same problems as the rest of us here.

Maybe one day I will own a Ford again

Regards to all

Mort (finally happy)

[Mort]

p.s

Found

On

Road

Dead

[brs]

I too have a 2004 Focus CMax TDCi Auto and have suffered the various power loss scenarios described by other correspondents to this site. The car was hardly away from the garage whilst it was under warranty and suffered the changing EGR valve, draining fuel, replacing fuel filters, cleaning MAF sensors etc etc. The car was towed in about 6 times in all.

I once had a total power loss in the outside lane of the M40 at 70 mph. Fortunately I managed to get safely to the hard shoulder. Waited for 5 mins car restarted ran for a mile then cut out again, restarted after another 5 mins and ran as far as Birmingham when I called RAC. They canme out and could find no fault and it then got me home to Cheshire with no problems.

When it was out of warranty I still had problems and insisted that Ford take some responsibility as I considered the vehicle to have a latent defect in the design which should have been fixed under the warranty. In the end they claimed the power loss was due to a chafed cable which was shorting out and confusing the EMS.

The car has just done 105000miles and I was only thinking it was now running well when the transmission failed completely whilst my wife was driving. I am now told that a replacement gearbox will be £4500!!!!. Despite being a nice car to drive I strongly advise all owners not to hang on to their vehicles too long. I am not spending £4500 to repair a car which is only worth £2500.

Independent transmission repairers cannot get spares and so you have no alternative to go with the main dealer.

Does anyone know where I can get a reconditioned box?

[rjays]

Well Well Well...you never guess what? I am embarrassed to say that i also bought a c-max and THEN found this site....It sounds as if you are all describing my car!!....My symptons are as follows....( by the way its a 2004 tdi automatic zetec)...1. i get to about 1800 revs and the car feels as if its running out of fuel.....2. At 2200 - 2400 revs the "transmission malfunction" message comes up....3. If i switch to driving it in "manual mode", at 2200 - 2400 revs, the engine management light comes on!!.... 4. If i increase speed slowly thus keeping the revs under 2000 the car will drive up to 80 mph with no problem...I took it to the local ford dealer and i quote from the invoice i received, "trace fault to transmission malfunction, spoke to ford engineers..possible fault with turbine shaft speed sensor...unable to locate this part so spoke to an auto gearbox specialist and determined fault is possibly with auto gearbox itself"....The service manager tried to tell me that they had NEVER encounted this problem..which is why they spoke to the ford engineers, who also said they had never come across it!!.... ( I phoned him today and asked him to check out this site! )....the position i am in at this moment in time is a bill for 2hrs labor (£170) although he told me the technician worked on the vehicle for 7 HOURS!!...but he would only charge me for 2hrs...(was this a ply to make me feel better?) Well let me say I DONT...fact is the car is excatly as it was before i took it in, the only difference is i'm £170 out of pocket and none the wiser......PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP !!

[rjays]

Just as an update....Ive finally discovered when the problems arise...Its when the vehicle needs to change down a gear ( 7th to 6th 6th to 5th 5th to 4th etc) to accelerate whether im in auto or semi auto the problem appears....however to combat this i have now learned to get the revs up.. so in semi mode 1st gear 3000revs then change to 2nd bring the revs back up to 3000 and change to 3rd and so on until i reach 7th..i only change down once the rev counter falls below 2000.... this seems to work fine on mine with no problems at all...what its doing to the gearbox i have no idea but it works..am i just masking the true problem or what?...by the way if the car (in auto mode) changes down a gear to slow down at a junction for example theres no problem.. just when it changes down to accelerate to overtake or going up a steep hill...is this the same as anyone elses?

[trignflo]

Is this problem only down to Auto's as I have an 04 plate 2.0TDCi manual which has the 1800 -2000 rev hesitation problem, many EGR's in the past...... only done 26K miles since new.... Did any one get anywhere with the tuning / chipping suggestion?

Trignflo

[rjays]

hi trignflo...not sure if its just auto's...and i personally have not tried chipping

[Johnty14]

I feel your pain, one and all. Luckily my 1.6 CVT was bought from a family friends garage so all work done has been paid by them. They are letting me use the car until they can find a suitable, manual, replacement. I have had EGR valves changed, Turbo boost pressure sensors replaced, wiring joints cleaned and waterproofed and they paid for a tuning box to be fitted to get rid of the acceleration 'dead zone'.

The tuning box has improved mpg and performance, but not cured the 1600 - 2000 rpm stutter, it just happens at 1800 - 2200 rpm instead now! They have come to the conclusion that it is just an incompatible engine and gearbox combination. I have read about solenoids shorting out, but that was found, by chance at 2am in the morning by the owner. The fault occured while driving home one night down an unlit road, he left the car running and popped the bonnet not expecting to find anything, just out of frustration. Anyway, he reported seeing some sparking (he doesn't pinpoint where though) to the garage breakdown guy and they replace and shield the solenoids. Hey presto, the problem was cured! Could be an old wives tale but sounds plausable to me. You just need to find a garage that is willing to work at 2am with the lights off when your C-Max starts to do it's thing, pfffft.

[dizzy1]

I have an automatic and once I was at a round about with the heat on max and pulled out to find I didn't have the power I needed, I was also in manual at the time. I have noticed slight power reductions when pulling off but just put it down to my style of driving

[dizzy1]

Mark,

Thanks for posting the extract from the manual.

I've had more fun and games since my last post - the garage charged me £200 for replacing the crankcase breather hose plus cleaning the MAF sensor. This improved the problem for one journey of a mile, after which it seemed worse than ever.

I then got a total loss of power on the motorway - co-incidentally just as I was near the dealer. I crawled into the garage and left the engine running whilst getting a tachnician to confirm there was a problem. He did - but of course they couldn't see the car then - it had to be booked in.

I was fed up and got Ford Customer Relations involved in advance of taking it back to the dealers. The dealer has now changed his attitude completely - claiming there are no fault codes, that Ford Technical say these problems are "a characteristic of the car" and they can't do anything.

The car has since been back to the dealer again for them to drive around for four days "no fault codes, no action possible" and is booked in again for early January, when they're going to offer me a courtesy car for the first time.

The garage is going through the motions - very slowly, but I'm not hopeful of a proper fix. I just hope the car doesn't pack up in a critical place. I'm very close to saying "f*@k it, get rid", losing 5 grand to replace it and never buying a Ford again.

The EXACT same thing happens to mine when I take off, just like you I have to give it extra acceleration cause it feels like its dropped.

[TURBO RICH]

Hi all am new to forum but boy am glad I've found it

I've owned my c-max just over 3 years and never had so many bills and problems that never seem to be fixed

even our local garage are calling it "the 5 clock Friday car"

I paid 8.5 k now its value seems to be 3k trade in with just 54k miles on it

I've been experiencing all above problems mentioned in this thread

my car is still in ford after a week of trying different things egr(third in 3 years) map(2 in 3 years) (air mass sensors only 1) reprogramming update (countless times) etc.

its showing no faults on ecu but drives like a pig and very heavy on fuel

its seems to go into limp mode daily

was wondering if there were any real protests to manufacture for compensation or real repair,

or do I just get rid and lose thousands ?

any good sound advice would be appreciated

a very broke

Richard - Bristol

[derby72]

Anyone having problems with the C-max transmission please visit my Facebook page Ford Focus C-max 1.6 TDCI CVT premature gearbox failure & click like & post your problem trying to get Ford to take action on this issue that has been around for years!!!!!

[ferguswalker]

Ford C-Max 1.6 dci manual 54 plate. Having same "hunting"/"power loss" problems experienced by many in this forum topic - is there no hope for us? Been in the local Ford garage but as you might expect, the problem persists. What is the prognosis? Any one had success with changing the chip and at what cost? Has Ford ever acknowledged the problem?

[Dental angel]

Same problems.

I have an 04 plate - problems from the start I bought the car from a ford dealer I was looking to buy an 1.8 didn't mind what type , came across the 04 c-max took for a test drive seemed ok paid deposit should have received car a week later but still in garage , I was informed the car when I bought it was put straight on the forecourt as they didn't have enough stock and not checked, I thought well at least it was having a proper check, 3 weeks later I received the log book - checking through this the 04 c-max a was actually a 2.0 tdci I immediately complained to the salesman that the paper work he had given me was for a 1.8 but I was actually sold a 2.0 tdci , I asked where I stood in relation to getting my money back he replied it would be difficult !

I have had the car for just over 2 years it has now occured the same faults it is going into limp mode. I have called the AA out 4 times this year , the last time it went into limp mode the complete loss of ignition no power doesn't even turn over.

I need some help and advise if I cut my losses I've been told I would only receive trade in about £800 !

[leon samual]

Talking to ford rep as power loss seems to be common faut. He said its mostly fuel filters. Try that first

[wapvirus]

This could also be contributing to the fault read this blog

Ford electronic throttle control