Mk2 Focus Immobiliser Problem

[Linusbert]

Hi, im having a problem with my 2005 ford focus 2.0 tdci. Had alternator issues and had to keep taking my battery out to recharge. Last week i disconnected the battery and then car would not start. Turn ignition to II and rapid flashing red light for 1 minute then i get code 16. I have started the car but means of jumping but then sometimes i have problems with power steering and traction control. I did take it to ford dealer on Wednesday after i could not start even by jumping. The next day they tried starting the car and said it worked fine first time. Only had go delete some codes. I drive to petrol station. Stop start fine. I drive to a store, stop start fine. I drive down the road 3 minutes then i have no power. Revs idle at 1000 even with foot down flat. I pull over stop the car and try to restart but nothing. Only rapid flashing red light for 1 minute then code 16. I was back at car today but did not start. Would really appreciate some help. Many thanks in advance

[Tdci-Peter]

3 hours ago, Linusbert said:

The next day they tried starting the car and said it worked fine first time. Only had go delete some codes. I drive to petrol station. Stop start fine. I drive to a store, stop start fine. I drive down the road 3 minutes then i have no power. Revs idle at 1000 even with foot down flat. I pull over stop the car and try to restart but nothing. Only rapid flashing red light for 1 minute then code 16. I was back at car today but did not start

It is almost certainly an intermittent electrical connection in the HS CAN bus that is a twisted pair of wires running from the IC (instrument cluster) to the ECU. It goes through 5 connectors on its journey, including the ones on the IC & the ECU.

On my 2006 car it was a bad joint in the IC, a very common problem, but almost specific to 2006. In other cases it has been one of the other connectors. A rather long thread where this has been traced to one or two of the other connectors is:

You will need Forscan, a laptop, an ELM327 adapter, a multimeter, and probably quite a lot of patience and determination to locate and fix this nasty little problem.

[Linusbert]

For the moment i can not get my car anywhere near my home to take a proper look at it. Could i ask any local garage that is near my car to take a look or must be a Ford dealer. Also what price would i be looking at?

[Tdci-Peter]

4 hours ago, Linusbert said:

Could i ask any local garage that is near my car to take a look or must be a Ford dealer. Also what price would i be looking at?

Most local garages are really great when replacing a hub, or wishbone, or clutch. But few have really got into understanding electrical circuits and even less into electronics. Some garages have contacts with electrical expertise (eg an auto-electrician), but quality varies a lot.

A Ford franchised dealer will usually just follow Ford Corp. recommended procedures, connect to a computer and replace expensive parts at will. £800 or more for an IC, several hundred for a wiring loom, I expect. Plus at least £100 just for diagnosis. Maybe I am being a bit cynical, but it is cynicism based solidly on trustworthy reports!

So I would speak to your local garages, see if they talk sense without a load of bravado. It could be they know about the problem and can get someone in to fix it relatively cheaply. The Ford dealer you went to obviously knows nothing.

I fixed the broken IC on my car for £15 for the ELM327 adapter, and that has proved an invaluable investment worth more than the money I paid anyway. So you could say I made a profit on the breakdown! Ok, I am cheating a bit, I am an electronics engineer, but I knew nothing about CAN buses or the electronics in a Mk2 Focus at the time. And it was very stressful when it happened.

 

[Jonesy74]

I'm having simular problems with the immobiliser light flashing and getting no crank, I am getting flash code 11 and I've read that this is the transponder coil fault. Is this easy to replace and will I have to get my keys reprogrammed to it to allow it to start again.

[isetta]

If you replace transponder coil you will not have to reprogram keys. The code is in the ecu and instrument cluster. The transponder is just the thing that reads the code to check key against the ecu and instrument cluster. But there is a good chance it’s not a transponder coil fault. It could be canbus wiring connector problem. It could be the well known cracked soldering on the connector pins in the instrument cluster (instrument cluster= the speedo unit)

[isetta]

If you have an ohmmeter on you can use it on the obd socket to test if there is a break in the canbus and then by unplugging different connectors you can narrow down where it is eg between obd and ecu or between obd and instrument cluster. This is all in previous posts. I do find it hard to search for stuff on here. If you have ohmmeter and want to do this I will see if I can find some previous posts. 

[isetta]

On my brothers 2009 focus 1.8tdci we thought a few times we had fixed it by cleaning up corroded connectors and then it would do the same thing the next day.it was so frustrating that I resorted to rewiring the whole high speed canbus with new wires and soldering connections. That fixed it. Hope yours does not need that drastic action. A bit more background. The canbus is constant flow of computer data between the ecu under bonnet, the bcm under the glovebox and the instrument cluster. All of those have computer chips in. Any slight interruption in the data flow by bad connectors etc confuses it all and problems arise

[isetta]

And more, when it first happened away from home the aa or rac were called, can’t recall which. They took the car home and said the problem was the key had lost its code and key reprogramming would fix it. This was 100% totally wrong.

[unofix]

45 minutes ago, Jonesy74 said:

I'm having simular problems with the immobiliser light flashing and getting no crank, I am getting flash code 11 and I've read that this is the transponder coil fault. Is this easy to replace and will I have to get my keys reprogrammed to it to allow it to start again.

Hello Jason, I very much doubt that it will be the transponder read coil, it is just a loop of wire like an aerial. Far more likely is poor solder joints on the back of the instrument cluster. There are companies advertising on eBay who repair/refurbish your instrument cluster for £50 to £70.

[Jonesy74]

I've had the cluster redone 3 weeks ago and everything was fine until start of this week when the immobiliser light was constantly flashing and car wouldn't start. The flash code coming up is 11 and that's puts me towards the transponder. After this I'm lost on what it could be.

[unofix]

5 minutes ago, Jonesy74 said:

I've had the cluster redone 3 weeks ago

Then I would be even more confident in saying the fault is with the Instrument Cluster. You need it fully refurbished, that means every solder joint being reflowed, not just a few.

 

[Jonesy74]

That's what I had done, every solder was repaired carhad been working fine for 3 weeks, I've had cluster out and checked the resolder on all of them and it's fine. I'm at a dead end with it now.

[Tdci-Peter]

6 hours ago, Jonesy74 said:

I am getting flash code 11

I've only ever seen or heard of flash code 16 for the CAN bus fault. Also you are outside the date range for the real peak of the IC solder problem, though they are generally not the most reliable bit of kit, so it can't be ruled out.

Replacing the transponder coil is cheap & easy, so I would go down that route first. Then look again at the IC, paying special attention to the circuits from the transponder. Pins 3,5 & 6 are the transponder connections to the big connector on the IC. Pin1 on the transponder is a +12v (Ignition) supply, which does not come from the IC, so also should be checked.

Using Forscan to double check what errors (DTCs) are being generated will also help. There will usually be a massive difference between the error codes from a CAN bus fault, and those just from a transponder fault.

[isetta]

Whilst I can’t remember what the obd codes or dashboard messages were on my brothers car people kept telling me it would be the instrument cluster soldering problem. My tests with ohmmeter were telling me the problem was between obd socket and ecu but I did resolder the pins on the Cluster connector even though I thought it wasn’t that and I admit that using a magnifying glass it did look like very fine cracks in the soldering on the pins.  But that did not fix it. As I say, rewiring  the canbus fixed it.  I don’t know exactly where the fault is on yours but I suppose I am saying it’s not necessarily the most common fault. I agree with Peter in reading the fault codes with a obd reader it might give some more clues

[Jonesy74]

I'm having a 2nd hand cluster put in this week as the auto repair garage it's in couldn't fix the fault that was being caused by the cluster. Hopefully this will solve the problem.

[isetta]

I hope that does fix it for you. I think keys need reprogramming when the instrument cluster is changed. Don’t know if you care about the mileage being different.  I understand the mileage can be adjusted upwards but not downwards. Although someone somewhere has probably found a secret way of adjusting it downwards. 

[unofix]

2 hours ago, Jonesy74 said:

I'm having a 2nd hand cluster put in this week as the auto repair garage it's in couldn't fix the fault that was being caused by the cluster.

So the instrument cluster is faulty ?

On 11/26/2021 at 10:06 AM, unofix said:

Then I would be even more confident in saying the fault is with the Instrument Cluster.

I hope your garage knows what they're doing fitting a second hand IC. It's not a quick swap as the PATS security will need reprogrammed, the keys reprogrammed and as Isetta has said the mileage corrected. The mileage on the replacement has to be less than the original because mileage can only be corrected upwards it can't be reduced.

[Jonesy74]

The new cluster pack has worked and car back on the road as well, so looks like a fault in cluster was causing the problem after having the solder joints done, seems they haven't been done properly and this caused the faults that were un fixable with that cluster in