Engine failure system

[Sophiimg]

Hey guys. I have a ford focus zetec climate 2006. Had for nearly two years 1 previous owner 102066 on clock. Had a full lservice 6 months back and my mot 2 month ago. Past year I've experienced rare occasional  stutter feeling when car on idle. Past 2 weeks or so a "engine system fault" message has appeared on dashboard not the engine light just this message goes on for about half a mile to a mile then disapears.. Iv just run a engine diognostic machine ( iobd2) that my dad has on the car and no code or any fault has appeared. Any ideas what's going on? 

[alexp999]

Might need a code reader that can dig a bit deeper on Fords.

Often the generic OBD readers don't find anything but something like Forscan or IDS will.

If you are getting a fault message, it should have logged a DTC.

[Sophiimg]

Ok great think I will take it to a garage just ideally wanted to have a idea myself first as some garages can try fog you off for more money 😂 thank you anyway 

[Phil21185]

What you want is an ELM327 cable. Preferably a 'modified' cable which just means it has a switch on it for accessing two different lots of settings.

They are not more than about £20 but be sure to buy a genuine one.

Forscan is free. There is an extended licence which is also free which allows more tools in the software but otherwise will tell you about everything that is going on in your car.

You can also get FoCCCus for free which is more about enabling features on your car that a dealer would normally do.

A garage will charge you at least an hour's labour just to read the code. The code they read will be a general one which can likely point to several different problems and they'll happily charge you for each second they are sleuthing.

For £20 you get the kit yourself which you can use in future and can post your codes here and receive free advice!

It's not an intelligence test anyone should fail... 😉