Hi all any advice welcomed... right had a few issues with car (1.6 tdci 08 plate) anyway been in garage several times had various things done still no fix anyway it was traced down to the cluster car running with cluster out of dash then malfunction happens wiggle clocks fault goes everything fine then comes back wiggle clocks again fault goes had the wiring all checked no breaks or anything, but if you pressed the grey terminal block on back of cluster then fault would go let pressure off and fault comes back so had cluster terminal resoldered and that's now fine seems there was a dry joint / crack in one of the terminal pins but now car will run but only with reduced acceleration everything else appears fine car runs just the pick up speed reduced , tried clearing codes , disconnecting battery but everytime touch the accelerator pedal even very lightly the warning beep and engine malfunction comes up and says acceleration reduced.... any ideas ? does the car need to go to be reset at a ford dealer or could there be a further fault with the cluster? I've already paid for 2 diagnostics and over 200 quid for replacing the earth cables because of corrosion and fault finding still car not fixed , ford want over 700 quid to replace the cluster and to upload info from old cluster to new one :(

It is most likely your problem is caused by a defective instrument cluster. The Focus MK2/MK2.5 instrument cluster has (in my opinion) poor quality soldering connections which can cause a lot of problems.

If resoldering (all of) the connections of the connector on the circuit board of the instrument cluster does not solve the problem there can be other bad soldering connections on the circuit board.

In my opinion you have 3 options:

1. Take the instrument cluster to a specialist who can test/repair the instrument cluster.

2. Buy a second hand instrument cluster and program it into your car. It is important that the second hand instrument cluster has a lower mileage than your car (the mileage can only be changed upwards). All MK2/MK2.5 instrument clusters are technical compatible. Only Diesel/Petrol instrument clusters differ from eachother (scale of the tachometer).

3. Buy a new instrument cluster and program it into your car.

With the right diagnostic tools you can program a new (or used) instrument cluster into your car yourself. I programmed a MK2.5 instrument cluster into my MK2 this way.

As above but there is a difference between variants with and without satnav built in as well. The display between the dials is a different size to accommodate the next turn indicators etc