Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum but have a problem with my car, a 1.8 tdci focus estate (59 plate). I have only had the car a few months and a week ago while driving I noticed a puff of steam from the engine bay. I checked and could not see anything obvious so thought it must have just been spray from the road hitting the exhaust or something.

Later that day, the engine warning came on to say it was overheating so I immediately stopped. I could see coolant dripping from the bottom of the car and the system was as good as empty. The fault was traced to a pipe at the back of the engine, at the top, which apparently feeds coolant round the turbo? I have no technical skill so rely on what the garage told/showed me. It seems like a bad design where there is a plastic right angled piece and, over time, the water hitting the right angle and turning had worn a hole in it. The part was on back order with no due date, but fortunately can in pretty quickly.

I got the car back last week, drove around 100 miles, and the same thing happened again. The garage are fitting a new piece, but there is the concern that that too might fail but no-one seems to be able to work out what the reason would be, I cannot see it being due to excessive pressure, as if that was the case I would have thought another, older part of the system would blow instead of a hole wearing that quickly in a new piece. The garage phoned the Ford dealership, who could only suggest pressure but suggested the pipe may need replaced with a metal one, which got my suspicions up that there may be a known fault.

Has anyone else experienced or heard of this? I also noticed the heater in the car was not working, possibly connected to the low coolant but it didn't seem to work after it had been topped up? Not that I can make any connection between the heater not working and the new pipe wearing out that quickly.

I hope it's just been a faulty spare!

Many Thanks

I cant say I have heard of it, but Ford are very good at manufacturing a faulty part, and then re manufacturing it correctly. Unfortunately though, even though they acknowledge a design flaw, they do not normally offer compensation in replacement parts (last I know was the MK 1.5 faulty instrument cluster at a reduced rate) otherwise your on your own! as for the pipe, if there is a metail substitute its better to use it, can you provide any photo's of the affected area, and the damage?

Thanks for the advice, my concern is that if there is something causing the pipe to blow, replacing it with a metal pipe will just cause something else to blow, but as I mentioned I seriously question whether it is pressure as I would have expected an older part of the system to blow the second time instead of a brand new part, but since I know nothing about engines I don't know if that makes any sense!

The car is still in the garage, kind of feel they are messing me about now, so can't take photos yet.

could be just a defective batch to be honest, but ideally the garage should be testing everything and pressure should also be considered. To be honest, I dont think you would have a problem with High water pressure, if anything your more likely to suffer low pressure in a faulty pump (worst case scenario)..

Is it a dealership or an independent?

It's an independent garage. They have now replaced the hose but say there is a problem with the system. Pressure seems fine, but they say the pipes at the top of the engine are getting hot while the pipes on the bottom are remaining cool, so they say there must be a blockage. They've ruled out the heater matrix and now say they will need to go through the system to see if there is any pipes breaking down causing a blockage. They are phoning the ford dealership as well to see if there is any common problem areas.

This is doing my head in now, I struggle to understand how pressure can be OK if there is a blockage causing the same pipe to break twice

Definately sounds like a block, they need to try and squeeze each of the pipes leading to the radiator after the engines had a chance to get warm, they can then track the cold pipes back to the hot one and see where the blockage is. If they start by feeling the radiator, they can identify which direction to look (left or right, up or down) then work there way back to find any blockages from there!

Thanks, that makes me feel more confident that they are now on the right line in tracking the fault. Thanks for that.

I got the car back, but the garage are far from confident. They say they have been blowing water through the system and cannot find any leaks or blockages, they've checked as many pipes as they can get to and I asked if they did the working their way back from the cold pipes to the hot and they said they had but not all pipes are accessible. They have changed the thermostat, just in case. The only other thing they can think of is a solenoid. I have the car back to try, and if it fails it will need to go to the ford dealership but they say they asked 2 ford dealerships and both said just to do what they were doing anyway.

I got home OK, but it's less than 2 miles. The car is not blow hot air, which makes me pretty sure nothing has changed. The pipe they replaced as very hot when I got back, but since I have no idea what sort of temperature it's meant to be at, I don't know if this is cause for concern.

I'll try to get some photos up, but any advice would be gratefully appreciated as I now don't want to risk driving this car.

I'll try this for photos

If it works, the above photo is of the hose that has blown twice in a short period of time. The hose is at the back of the engine, central top

The above photo is looking down on the engine and the arrow points to where the hose connects.

Unfortunately the pictures are very small and cant expand to a larger size to be seen more clearly.

Does it have any part numbers on the hose? perhaps another member with access to ecat can confirm that part number is the most recent (in case they have re manufactured the part?

I've tried to see a number on the pipe but can't, it's almost impossible to get into. It does have 'top hose' written on it though. I took the car to the local Ford dealership on Friday and spoke to both the service manager and one of the main mechanics. They confirmed that the garage that did the repair had been speaking to them about it and seemed to have done a thorough job in trying to find the problem. I asked them to run a diagnostic test but they advised against it at the moment. They too recommended driving the car, keeping an eye on the coolant level and temperature to see if the blockage has been cleared. If it leaks again, they will do the diagnostic. It made me feel better that they were turning away work! I took the car for about a ten mile run, and then straight back to the dealership as there was still no hot air in the car. They advised it could be a number of things, not necessarily connected with the coolant system, and to take the car for a longer run as making sure the cooling system was OK was the main priority. I took it for a 30 mile run, and all seemed fine (but still no hot air).

One thing I did notice though, when I first got the car back from the repairing garage, I checked the hoses. The one in question was very hot. I also checked the hoses connected to the reserve tank (not sure if thats the right term!), one was warm, one cold. That set alarm bells from the garage telling me that they had found the top hoses hot and the bottom hoses cold. However, after I took the car for the 30 mile run, I checked again, and all hoses were hot to touch (and the reserve tank was warm). makes me wonder if the garage ran the car long enough for everything to heat through? I can't get into any hoses at the bottom due to the protective cover. The garage said something about these cars draw the heat direct from the exhaust system so it's almost instant, so would that mean those closest to the exhaust heat first and then the heat has to work through the system?

Other than a problem with the coolant system, what else could cause the hot air in the car not to work? I would feel a lot better if I could get that working and knew it was not connected.

It sounds like you might have some some sort of blockage, large enough to cause a block when running idle, but small enough that it can be passed when the pressure is up.

You have three options - live with it, rip each pipe and hose apart in search of a blockage (that includes the rad / thermostat also) or pay for another dealer to have another look, to possibly come back to one of the above two!

It seems a tricky little so and so to find!

A bit of an update on this saga. I drove the car unbelievably cautiously for about a week, trying to keep it below 2000 revs at all times, as before it was when I went over 2000 revs that there was enough pressure that coolant was spraying onto the engine causing the steam I could see, so 2000 revs was sort of a mental barrier for me when the pipe could go again. I still had no hot air in the car, but the coolant level was staying steady, so no indication of any leaks

The car was due it's MOT last week and the day before I decided enough was enough, and I drove the car normally again and stopped worrying about the revs. I worked on the basis the car was going to the garage the next day anyway. After a fairly short time of driving more normally, I realised I was going to have to turn the heater down as I had hot air! When I got home I checked the coolant again and it had dropped very slightly. So what the garage now think is there had been a block, but they had already stripped a lot of the pipes down and blown water through with compressed air, so they think this must have cleared the block. But there there had been a small airlock, which when I took the revs up in the car was cleared by the pressure, hence hot air and a slight drop in coolant level (air cleared so coolant took it's place?). So far so good, but I have almost no confidence with the car any more, although that is building again over time.I still think the first part they fitted was faulty. All pipes seem to get hot after a decent run, including the in and out pipes for the expansion tank, which in my non technical head says the water must be going all the way round the engine and isn't being blocked anywhere.

I spoke to a friend who is a mechanic and he said he has seen something similar happen where it was the waterpump starting to break down, but the only way to know is to take off the pump. So if the cars plays up again, that will be the next thing I will have to get looked at. Hopefully it won't come to that though!

first sign of any problem within the system, would be a cold heater.

if the new hose split, that can only be caused by serious pressure, highly unlikely to be a faulty hose...if the hose connector blew off, then could be either faulty connector or high pressure.

this does sound like it had a blockage somewhere in the system, or possibly air trapped after the repairs were made.

if it was air that has finally bled itself, then you should have no further problems

but if it was a blockage, then you may find that blockage reappearing later, as whatever caused it may have just pushed further round the system and is now settled where its showing no harm..all depends on whatever caused the blockage, has actually broke up [such as sediment] or not [such as silicone that was applied as a gasket sealer for eg, in a previous repair]

so keep an eye on what the heater does, as that will be your first sign.

had a very similar problem that ended up with me persuading the owner to take a gamble on a new rad, as i had thoroughly checked the rest of the system, found and cleared a blockage [sediment] in a very narrow by-pass pipe, but still had a problem that reared its head again after couple of hundred miles.

i had flushed this rad twice, without problem, but couldnt see it being anything else..he agreed, so took out the old rad and buthchered it..sure enough, i found 2 of the bars out of about 15, in the lower corner of the rad, blocked solid..this was enough to stop water flowing as it should, yet to the touch, rad was hot all round as the normal pressure of the system was enough to make the water hot either side of the blockage..you have no idea how long i spent on this car all told, and seriously happy i solved it, as the customer was pushing me to change the pump just to eliminate it, which i wouldnt as i couldnt fault it so saved him a few hundred quid on a gamble i was convinced wasnt going to work.

Did the garage try replacing the expansion tank cap. If its not holding pressure the coolant wont circulate causing hot and cold spots and an airlock. This would cause you not to get hot air through the heating system and for the coolant to boil at much lower temperatures than it would when the system is pressurised.

The garage took the whole system apart and blew water through it all. They said the new hose punctured at the same point as the original, which I struggle with as if it was pressure I would expect there to be weaker points elsewhere in the system within the older parts that would go before the new part. They checked the pressure and said it was fine. They didn't replace the expansion tank cap but I know from opening it that it is holding the pressure.

They spent days on this, stripping it down, checking it and putting it back together and it was the lack of hot air in the car that caused me the concern when I got it back, though the Ford dealership said that could be down to a number of things. I'm checking the coolant levels every couple of days though, just in case!