Help! Starting Problems!

[Sam.b]

Hi everyone,

i wonder if anyone can give me any help or advice please? I drive a Focus 1.8 TD 2006, the car has been having some intermittant starting problems, its turning over and on the occasions it does start its kicking out some white smoke. The car has just been serviced and had a new fuel filter fitted shortly after. Turns out i need a new fly wheel which is getting fitted next week, this had caused some iron filings to be covering the crank sensor but that has been changed and its still the same. The injectors have been tested and seem fine. Im a stupid girl and dont really know much about cars ha ha they guy who is fitting the fly wheel is at a lose end and cant figure out why it might be doing it.

Hellllllppppp.

Thanks :)

[DanGersFord]

Hi welcome to the forum im going to move this to the focus section you'll be more likely to get help there :)

[Sam.b]

Thanks very much :)

[DanGersFord]

No problem

[Mike77]

Is he changing the clutch aswell with the flywheel ? Pointless doing one without the other, bit of a false economy. And relating to your starting problem,, is it mainly first start of the day that is difficult ? If so, it could be the glow plugs, cheap fix, often overlooked, and would cause the white smoke your talking about.

[artscot79]

sounds more like a diesel pump issue and not uncommon did they test the pump and injectors or just the injectors themselves as above the glow plugs are a over looked issue

[DanGersFord]

I thought glowplugs but wasnt sure with the white smoke.

[Sam.b]

yeah he is doing the clutch too. To be honest im really not sure if they checked the pump too, i will definitely ask. I will also get them to check the glow plugs, i didnt realise that would cause the smoke, last time there was a problem with the glow plugs it came up on the dash saying engine systems fault or something like that and it put the car into a kind of safe mode, it didnt have problems starting. But when that happened no one could seem to find the fault and i ended up having to take it to ford.

Thanks very much for the tips guys :)

[Mike77]

They can suffer from starting problems due to the clutch & flywheel going, something to do with dust clogging the starter motor, but this wouldn't cause white smoke. In my opinion its not worth testing the glow plugs in situ, they need taking out to do it properly. And mine also showed up on the dash like yours BUT,only when they had ALL failed, so it was struggling to start for some time but showing no codes. Good luck with yours.