Car goes in to garage on Monday for diagnostics due to symbol on dash coming up. Does anyone know what the red cog with red exclamation mark means? 56' Reg Focus....

Powertrain malfunction – if on, this light shows that the powertrain has been damaged and the car needs to be serviced as soon as possible.

Are you having any problems with the car while driving? , You may have to get this checked and see what codes it is throwing up , did you buy private or from a garage

That warning is the powertrain fault indicator.

Quite often it means an injector fault or glowplug relay if it's a diesel.

If the light has come on them a fault code should be stored.

Hey guys, thanks for that. I took it in briefly today and he asked me to bring it back Monday so that he could have it all day. #

I bought it last May from a dealer (Stringfellows). It is a diesel and he mentioned that it may be glow plugs.... Is this expensive?

I have been taking it steady as I am losing power and doesn't really want to go much above 2000 revs, he has told me that I can drive it as long as it is local and I take it steady......

Sounds like it's in gone into Limp Mode , which protects the engine from revving to high when theres a problem and causing damage.

I don't know the cost of replacing the glow plugs sorry

Hmmmm sounds about right to me, thanks for your input. Will just have to see what they say on Monday. The guy who owns the garage seems to be pretty decent, so hoping not to be ripped off.

The plugs themselves aren't super expensive and neither is the relay but it's the labour time that often bumps it up.

I'd reckon you'll be looking at £100-£150 all in if they're not trying to sting you.

To put it into perspective, if you were to head to Ford for the same thing then you'd be looking at £90ish just for the diagnostic alone.

Good luck at the garage and keep us posted on the outcome.

Thanks - They have a pretty good rep in the area and seem very customer orientated so fingers crossed!

I need to broach the situation with my lights though.... My front right headlight has never worked properly since I bought it from them - it keeps blowing, I went back about 4 times and they couldn't figure it out, it kept going dim. I got sick of going back in the end and just left it, but know that it will be hightlighted when I go for my MOT at the end of next month as it is not working at all now.

I shall mention that it has never really worked properly and hoping that he takes responsibility for it.

glow plugs are quite easy to change. just got to be super careful when undoing them in my experience. i'd be looking at the haynes manual for that.

i'm not used to fords (only just bought one) but i dont recall check engine lights coming on in previous cars....normally you tend to have some starting issues if glowplug(s) die.

but get codes read first and take it from there :)

ps, unless there's something perculiar to ford you should just be able to remove the electrical connection going to the plug and then unscrew it..... being very vareful. then replace, tighten up and reattach connector :)

hth

Thanks Bear. I am really hoping it is something simple, don't want lots of labour costs on top of the parts - will have to see what they say when they hook it up.

I am assuming that they will ring me with a price when they have found out what it is

Thanks Bear. I am really hoping it is something simple, don't want lots of labour costs on top of the parts - will have to see what they say when they hook it up.

I am assuming that they will ring me with a price when they have found out what it is

I've just re-read your posts Amanda (sorry only scan-read last night whilst drunk lol :)). The mechanic has only guessed what it is so there's no way of knowing if it's the glow plugs without having your codes read. Having said that he must see this a lot if he's a Ford dealer so it sounds like that would be the usual suspect.

How hands on are you? If it's glow plugs (or one in particular) you could do it yourself and use a Haynes book of lies manual as guidance.

If you don't fancy it yourself I'd make triple sure the dude knows that you want him to tell you what is wrong before going ahead with the work...wouldn't want a situation where he diagnoses AND fixes and then charges you a billion pounds! I'm just very suspicious of garages, dealers especially and don't mind taking an extra 10 minutes to spell out in crayon exactly what I want.

:)

Hmmm I know what you mean! Sadly I am not hands on at all :( I love cars but don't really know anything about the mechanics which is why I joined the forum, to get helpful advice from good people.

I am having it looked at on Monday that the garage that I bought it from last May. He seems pretty decent, but you never know.

Fingers crossed ......

i'm not used to fords (only just bought one) but i dont recall check engine lights coming on in previous cars....normally you tend to have some starting issues if glowplug(s) die.

hth

If the glowplugs get bad enough they WILL throw up an engine management light on these. As stated if they are that bad, you may well have noticed that it took longer to get going first thing in the morning, especially when the weather has been sub zero. Maybe even some smoke from the exhaust. Glowplugs these days are dual purpose, not only dealing with starting the car, but also burning off excess fuel to reduce emissions, and help lower the amount of road tax you pay. When mine went, it did the same, I had the reduced power (limp mode) but my light wasn't the cog, it was the red light to the right of the milage display, accompanied with the message 'engine systems fault'. Mine is a 1.8 tdci 2006 model. And glowplugs did fix my problem. Hope yours gets sorted.

If the glowplugs get bad enough they WILL throw up an engine management light on these. As stated if they are that bad, you may well have noticed that it took longer to get going first thing in the morning, especially when the weather has been sub zero. Maybe even some smoke from the exhaust. Glowplugs these days are dual purpose, not only dealing with starting the car, but also burning off excess fuel to reduce emissions, and help lower the amount of road tax you pay. When mine went, it did the same, I had the reduced power (limp mode) but my light wasn't the cog, it was the red light to the right of the milage display, accompanied with the message 'engine systems fault'. Mine is a 1.8 tdci 2006 model. And glowplugs did fix my problem. Hope yours gets sorted.

Got ya ;) Good explanation Mike. :)

Spot on Mike!! I have noticed excess fumes coming from the exhaust and thought that I possibly hadn't noticed it before, but makes sense now!

Taking it in first thing tomorrow.

Thanks guys! :P

Just tell them you have been getting a good insight in to what the problem and possible cost could be from here , and when they give you a price , tell them you need to look into it :) , unless you think it's a fair price , there are always other garages for second opinions.

Thanks Preee, I kind of mentioned that on Friday and his face dropped slightly, haha. I was very proud to say I was getting expert advice :-)

Okay.... so took the car in this morning at 8.30am, get a phone call at 2.30pm, telling me that they can't diagnose the problem Suggested another garage down the road for me to take it to :(

Hmmm strange , kinda makes you think , are they worried now they know i have taken advice lol , or perhaps their testing machine was not good enough to read the code's.

So you need to get a garage that can read the code's properly , downside is if Ford they may charge up 90 pound.

I'm wondering if it's better to get it in there for them to diagnose. There's nothing stopping you taking it elsewhere when you near faint at the quote they will give you.

Okay.... so took the car in this morning at 8.30am, get a phone call at 2.30pm, telling me that they can't diagnose the problem Suggested another garage down the road for me to take it to :(

This sounds like rubbish to me.

Did they tell you why they couldn't diagnose this and whether they'd read the codes or not?

I could just about understand if you took the car in with no check-engine light and you were having some random issue (like a performance issue as they can be hard to track down with no codes to help). But the fact is your car has thrown up a code to tell them what the problem is or at the very least a starting point to be able to diagnose.

I take it they didn't charge you for the liberty of having your time wasted?

The receptionist from the dealership rang me up - if I had spoken to the mechanic then I could of asked him a few questions, but it was obvious that she didn't really know what to say to me, she just kept apologising saying that "they didn't know what was wrong with it and didn't want to start fiddling about with it, but suggested that I take it to Crosshill Garage".

They didn't charge me for diagnostics, but I will probably be charged by the other garage.

I am taking iit in tomorrow afternoon straight from work - it drives fine, albeit virtually powerless - I just worry that I am doing damage.

The receptionist from the dealership rang me up - if I had spoken to the mechanic then I could of asked him a few questions, but it was obvious that she didn't really know what to say to me, she just kept apologising saying that "they didn't know what was wrong with it and didn't want to start fiddling about with it, but suggested that I take it to Crosshill Garage".

They didn't charge me for diagnostics, but I will probably be charged by the other garage.

I am taking iit in tomorrow afternoon straight from work - it drives fine, albeit virtually powerless - I just worry that I am doing damage.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask to speak to the mechanic for an explanation.

The code reader you need (if I'm correct in thinking) only costs £80.... I am new to this forum but I'm thinking someone must have one who could help out?

I agree with what you say about the testing equipment Preee. They are primarily a garage that centres around sales, but they do have a couple of mechanics who do MOT's, servicing etc.

He did say that they weren't quite sure about the codes on Friday and that it could either be the glow plugs or an electrical fault throwing up the glow plugs.... either way, they couldn't help :(

Crosshill is not a Ford Garage and he didn't warn me about a price for diagnosing the problem so will just have to see what happens tomorrow.

Good luck for tomorrow and keep us updated with what they find

Thanks guys.

Not as simple as I thought it would be, but then again I have to get it sorted out one way or another.

Shall keep you up to speed.