Engine Warning Light

[hillier291]

Hi Guys,

Hopefully somebody might beable to shed some light on this for me. I recently bought a 58 plate fiesta, diesel, over the last few days it has occasionally sounded the warning chime when turning the ignition on and the engine management light comes on. If I turn the ignition off again then back on its gone. Also last night when I turned the ignition on a similar thing happened but this time the power steering had failed. Again I turn the ignition off and back on and the problem has gone.

I have been to my local Ford dealer and they have quoted nearly £80 to plug their computer in to diagnose the problem but no avalible booking for another week.

I have also tried the holding down the trip reset for 10 seconds to run the engine test but nothing seems to happen.

Any ideas

Thanks Jamie

[GSM]

Hi Guys,

Hopefully somebody might beable to shed some light on this for me. I recently bought a 58 plate fiesta, diesel, over the last few days it has occasionally sounded the warning chime when turning the ignition on and the engine management light comes on. If I turn the ignition off again then back on its gone. Also last night when I turned the ignition on a similar thing happened but this time the power steering had failed. Again I turn the ignition off and back on and the problem has gone.

I have been to my local Ford dealer and they have quoted nearly £80 to plug their computer in to diagnose the problem but no avalible booking for another week.

I have also tried the holding down the trip reset for 10 seconds to run the engine test but nothing seems to happen.

Any ideas

Thanks Jamie

To start the test mode on the instrument cluster you get in the car with ignition off, press and hold the trip reset button, then turn the ignition on, and keep holding the trip resent button until "TEST" appears on the trip computer. This SHOULD work for you. Then you just hit the trip reset button repeatedly until you read the DTC section.

Failing that, if it's an engine management/powertrain fault, then you can get code readers for these relatively cheaply online - nowhere near £80 - it won't read ABS codes or other types of fault codes, but will read codes that are stored with your engine management light. Or you can take to somewhere like Kwik Fit who charge £35 to hook up for a diagnostic test that covers everything.

[colin79666]

As well as checking with a code reader it would also be worth doing an old school connection check. Pop the bonnet up and check the earthing points and battery connection. Check the battery with a multimeter if you can.

[Magenta]

If you have an Android smartphone, for less than £20 it might be worth getting the Torque OBD2 device to plug into the obd socket. They come with a bluetooth adaptor and display all the error codes as well as loads of engine data. Look on amazon.

I haven't got one myself yet but my son showed me his in his BMW and it looks impressive for such a small outlay. I bet the car manufacturers hate them.

[jeebowhite]

Looks a good product, I have decided to buy one myself!