Hi All, I am brand new to this! Sorry about all the details! Thanks for reading.

I have been having problems with my dashboard and speedo. I will be driving and the whole speedo fails. Every light on the dash will light up and speedo points to 0. Revs counter hits 0. Petrol gauge hits 0. I will be doing 70mph and the speedo says I'm doing 0mph. When this happens.. I carry on driving and then it sorts itself out again a few minutes later and works again but leaves the engine system fault light on. (Red explamation mark in red circle cog). When I change gear with this light on... The car loses power but then gains again.

Sometimes the engine system fault light stays on when I turn the ignition on but the car won't start! The 'alarm light' (little red dot light) flashes. The car will not start. Now here's the weird bit... When that car won't start... If I bang the dashboard on top of the speedo with my hand.. The light goes off and the car will then start when i turn the key. J have had the car scanned and errors showe that there was water inside the spark plugs.. I got these changed but everything is wrong! Please help!

You have the common Instrument Cluster fault. You need to have it repaired. You cannot just replace it with one from a donor car as the car won't start until programmed. It costs around £60-£100 but depends who you go to. Google search it. RevTonic is a good company. I suggest you stop driving the car doing 70 as the car can just cut out randomly. If you have a obd reader then you can check and see if you have codes like imobiliser theft detected, can communication error, and some P codes. But the conclude you need to have your cluster repaired.

Hi, thank you for the reply. I have had lots of advice on this problem and a lot of people have come back with the same answer. My question is... Once sent off to the company. What exactly do they do to fix the problem? I hope they don't just spray it with pcb cleaner and say it's fixed.

Thanks

No. They mostly resolder each point. But normally if you take apart the cluster you should see the cluster solder points that have degraded. But if you know how to use a solder professtionally then you have a go. ( legal text lol - anything you do with this advice is all down to you not me) but I suggest you take it to the shop.

Rev tonic up in Bradford do it . Post or walk in. You could also give it to this other company and they mod it for you as well. Change you light to like purple and stuff.

I have a feeling that the cluster has been tampered with... (Loose screws etc) would that be a problem? Thanks

It depends. The cluster shouldn't have any screws on it. It's casing is all held together with clips. Have you ever done the dash test on it? Check to see if you find black electrical tape

a failing vehicle speed sensor and a battery fault can also cause the above faults as well as the cluster the fact the revs and speedo hit 0 is an indication the speed sensor has stopped sending information to the cluster hence the cog and the limit in power it thinks there is an engine fault ide have the speed sensor changed first screws means its the mk1.5 lx which has a poor vehicle speed sensor

My speed sensor is dying, the speedo keeps dropping to 0 and power sags.
Can someone tell me where it is and how much a new sensor might cost.

Many thanks for your anticipated help.

to all those who kindly replied, the speed sensor was the culprit, and
was pleased that it only cost £23 UK. Bit tricky getting the pin out
that holds it it at the side. I noticed the sensor has been modified
quite a bit. Hopefully all my problems with cutting out etc are a thing
of the past.

My wife reported that the speedo (dial type) had dropped to zero a
couple of times recently, and then carried on working properly. This
morning, we were driving out of town when the speedo went to zero, the
odometer and tripmeter stopped working, and the engine behaved
erratically lights came on showing a fault for the first 6ooyds or so; it then recovered and carried on
perfectly well.



Checking on various websites, these symptoms are not uncommon with the
Focus and, in most cases, the problem seems to be due to a faulty
vehicle speed sensor (vss).

Mk1/Mk1.5 Focus suffer with the VSS fault and sometimes a bad cluster.

Mk2 is usually either a duff ABS sensor or bad solders on the cluster.

The Focus MK2/MK2.5 does not have a speed sensor. On these Vehicle the speed signal is calculated by the Brake Control Module (BCM) which is integrated on the ABS/IVD pump. The speed signal is distributed by the BCM over the CANbus netwerk to all modules that need the speed signal. The BCM uses the ABS sensors to calculate the speed. If 1 of the sensors fails the vehicle speed will still be calculated by the remaining 3 sensors. Only all of the ABS sensors failing at the same time (which is allmost impossible) or a defective BCM can result in a not working speedometer.

The problem of the topic starter is definetely caused by a defective instrument cluster. The Focus MK2/MK2.5 instrument clusters are known to have bad quality soldering connections which causes this problem. Due to vibrations (especially when driving on bad roads) the soldering connections of the main connector become cracked. This results in a bad (or no) connection which results in a lot of possible errors. In most cases the problem can be solved by resoldering all soldering connections of the main connector on the circuit board. If you are handy with a soldering iron you can do this yourself.