Bizarre idling problem

[Thoric]

Hi all, I hope somebody recognises my Focus engine problem and can advise because this fault is driving me crazy...

I drive a Y reg Focus 2.0 Ghia (petrol) estate. Recently it's started to fail to hold idle revs after starting up. When starting the engine it fires perfectly normally, then as the revs drop down to idle it falls into a stall and cuts out. A restart used to be enough to get it going, but now it's been refusing to keep running no matter how many restarts you try.

The bizarre thing is - I can get it to start by walking away for five mins, coming back and restarting it. It will still be cold, but it'll start up fine. This means I have to try starting her up on a morning ten minutes before I need to leave for work, go back indoors, twiddle my thumbs, then go back out knowing it'll start fine. Once running like this, the engine runs great.

This was all until most recently, and now even this technique fails to get the engine started. Now what I have to do is sit with my foot gently on the accelerator to keep the engine from stalling until it finally takes over for itself. This can take anywhere between 10 seconds and 20 minutes, not necessarily depending on how long it's been sitting idle nor the temperature outside.

One interesting behaviourism is that once it does finally take control of the idling speed, it does so with a boost of revs (up to say 3500 rpm) before dropping back down. I'm not an expert, but wouldn't this be the normal behaviour of the choke at engine start - a kick of revs?

I ought to add that on one morning I called out Greenflag. They plugged a handheld computer into the ECU and it reported no diagnostic problems. They couldn't locate the fault so they couldn't help me out. Does anyone know what the source of this problem might be? Choke? Idler? ECU?

Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Thoric

[SierraYankee99]

Idle control valve almost definitely

[Thoric]

Idle control valve almost definitely

Thanks for the advise SierraYankee, I'll have to take a look at it. Hopefully a bit of a clean-up will be enough - otherwise a replacement part I guess...

[SierraYankee99]

Aye, common fault pal

[stef123]

IIRC the 1.8 and 2 litre engines require a bit of work to get at the ICV. If you need any help accessing it i could give you the info from the haynes manual. If you can get it out, try giving it a good soak with brake cleaner or something and use cotton buds to give it a scrub.

[Thoric]

IIRC the 1.8 and 2 litre engines require a bit of work to get at the ICV. If you need any help accessing it i could give you the info from the haynes manual. If you can get it out, try giving it a good soak with brake cleaner or something and use cotton buds to give it a scrub.

Hi stef123, thanks for the offer, I might just take you up on that cos I'm probably gonna need all the help I can get! Are you offering to scan the pages and email 'em to me? If so, please use rt18_uk@yahoo.co.uk. Thanks!

I ain't got a Haynes myself, but I did once buy the Ford TIS on CD from eBay. I've never yet had any real reason to use it. Maybe it'll turn out to be useful now :P