Hi

I bought a second hand 63 plate Ford Ka Grand Prix 1.2 in Feb from Arnold Clark. One month after I got it, I was on the motorway and my check engine light came on and car went into limp mode - would not go above 30 mph. Turned car on and off, but this didn't help. Eventually had to get the car towed, and spark plugs and leads were changed.

After this, there was a constant smell of petrol/gas in the car whenever I used the AC - turns out that when my spark plugs were being changed, Arnold Clark mechanics had cracked my air filter box. So also had that fixed.

A few months later, engine warning light came on again as well as the general warning light and the car went into limp mode, but was fine after turning car on and off. Took it to a different garage - as I will not be putting my car back into Arnold Clark - who said the spark plug fault had not been cleared by the previous garage. So this was cleared, and the mechanic advised that if the issue continued it would probably be the coil pack.

Everything was fine for around one month, when the same thing happened again. Had the car run on two different diagnostic machines which now said the coil pack was the issue, so I had this changed (I also had a burst pipe). Been fine for around 3 weeks until today when the engine warning light came on and the car went into limp mode again - fine after turning on and off.

Does anyone have any idea what could possibly be the issue? I'm at a total loss now as to what the issue could be, and am pretty fed up of having an unreliable car.

Any help is much appreciated!!

Lauren

you really need a OBD code reader so you can read the fault codes yourself. With fords it is easy to get a cheap code reader and free software. It would cost you less than a garage would charge you to read the fault code only once. So it pays for itself very quickly.

I have one form here   ( I have the £15.85 one):

https://tunnelrat-electronics.fwscart.com/

this place also comes reccommended often on the Fiesta and Focus forums. You should get the 'modified' type as it has an added switch which enables the thing to access more stuff on a Ford car. 

Every Ford owner should have one with the free software (links on their help page).

Unless you can read the codes yourself you don't what know where to start and who to believe.