Focus 2006 MKII 1.6LX Petrol Instrument Cluster Issue

[Vik_Focus_Frustration]

Hi 

My first post

I have a Ford Focus 1.6LX, Petrol Manual 2006, every so often when I drive it all the lights pop up on the instrument cluster and the car goes in limb mode. The mileage clock also goes clear. Whilst I'm driving I sometimes don't know what speed I'm doing and always have my sat nav connected on my phone just in case. If I leave it for a few hours or overnight it almost certainly starts on the button and drives really well when working.

First I brought some WD40 switch cleaner sprayed the connections at both ends the car drive fine for ages 130 miles in fact. I was chuffed until the fault came up again. 

I'm in a bit of a predicament. I purchased a second hand cluster for £50 on eBay. Thinking swapping the cluster would fix the issue, but the car never started with the second hand cluster. I researched later that it needs programming. I'm struggling to find someone who can programme it for me at a reasonable price.

I've even looked at doing it myself via a ELM to USB cable connect to my laptop. Download the correct software. The thing is if I mess it up at worse the car is kaput at best I'll repair for the cost of a £20 cable and learned something along the way.

I've also looked up online where you can get the cluster repaired for £100/£120 with a lifetime warranty. But then I've only gone out and spent £50 on the cluster, I'll just re-sell on eBay. 

I don't want be throwing money to a car that's not worth a great much but at the same time it's only done 51,000 miles and as I said drives excellent when fully functional.

Any advice, links, engineer repairs would be greatly appreciated. I'm based in Essex.

Thanks in advance 😃

[dezwez]

The speed sensor can cause these problems to happen give it a google 

[dezwez]

 just noticed yours is a 2006 so i don't think it has one