Hello all. The Focus I have makes quite a bit of noise and most of the time stalls when put into reverse. It's a 2000 1.6 Zetec Automatic and drives fines in Drive. Thanks for your help.

Sounds like a gearbox error. what sort of noise do you hear? rattles? clunks? grinds?

It sounds alrite at first and the a bit of noise and it start jerking and if left conks out. Engine light, oil light and battery light all come on. Had a look at the engine as I was told to check tubes and pipe work. There is a tube just behind the engine oil filler cap that's a brown colour and is like a thin plastic/rubber that looks sucked in and feels like its got something running through it inside. Could this be the problem? Thanks.

Forgot to say 100000 miles on it. No reverse lights but I think that it just bulbs.

My guess without any mechanic knowledge would be to check the gearbox fluid, it could probably do with a refresh, and since you have 100k on the clock, it all depends on how it has been serviced over its lifetime. It could potentially be gearbox failure, but its more likely to be that its not got enough lubrication so it wont / cant run smoothly.

Check through the paperwork, find out when the gearbox had its last real service, unfortunately some owners / previous owners forget that Auto's need a bit more care and attention as well as more regular servicing, than a manual one.

Check the fluid colour, I think its meant to be an off yellow colour for healthy, if its anything else (I would suspect it may be brown) then its at least due a change!

It has a full service history and was last serviced December. Gonna get it looked at today by an automatic specialist. Thanks for your reply. Let you know how it turns out.

Sounds like a gearbox issue to me, worth checking with a specialist (not necessarily a Ford dealership / garage!)

I had stalling issues, thankfully I have a local independant & very reliable garage who diagnosed a faulty PCV (valve) which was £50 to replace & £25 to fit and crankcase ventialtion hose (£15 to source & £25 to diagnose & fit). TOUCH WOOD my issues are over now... The car does seem OK.

It seems I was (hopefully :-)) lucky 'cause both of the above parts were relatively cheap to supply & fix. The faulty PCV should have lit the engine warning light straight away but didn't :-(

From all the reading I did it seems that Ford used slightly "dodgy" hoses throughout the Focus engine - hopefully your issue can be easily found & cheaply fixed!