Good morning all,

Looking for some help with my focus, we bought her in october 2017 very clean only had 90k on the clock, has been a smoother runner until december.

Went out one morning started as usual going up the motorway it felt a lost of power (still running no noises made but wasnt going as fast when you put your foot down) got off at the next junction got to my mothers (only5 miles from the motorway exit) and pulled up nothing seemed to be wrong in the engine bay. Left it off for a few hours at mum's took it home that evening still had loss of power. A few days later i went to take it out was still weak of power but running on the way home going down a hill changed from 4th to 3rd and on the brow of the hill it cut out. 

Since cutting out the car will no start when ever you try to start it everything goes black on the dashboard. From different suggestions we have replaced the alternater, checked the earth points and cleaned them, checked fuses none have blown and replaced the battery. Had a friend plug in a diagnosis machine and there were 9 fault codes for the instrument cluster so we have replaced that as well. We only have the spare key not the orginal fob key so i called out a guy to reprogram the key and that was successful but the car still does not start.

Any suggestions would be appriciated.

Is the dash still going blank when trying to start?

Did you get a Silver Calcium battery?

Clogged fuel filter is common to cause the lack of power and cutting out on these but won't be causing the dash issues.

Hi Tomsfocus,

Yes the dash still goes blank, the battery wasnt a silver calcium one originally and was working fine so the one i replaced it with isnt either.

Fuel filter is worth looking into thank you. Need to get her starting as thats the major problem but thanks for that suggestion 

The battery on these needs to be silver calcium for the smart charge system.

I take it the battery that was on it wasn't the original Ford one when you got it?

Hi Tomsfocus,

No it wasnt a ford battery. I thought that may have only applied to the later models that have a start stop ignition.

No, the Stop Start models need a different battery again, they need an enhanced flooded battery.

The Smart Charge system is on all Fords from about 2001ish, it means the alternator can force a higher voltage into the battery when it's cold, unlike the conventional system that just puts 14.4v in regardless of temperature.  Problem is, this will kill regular batteries pretty quickly and cause other issues if the wrong battery is used.

Saying that, I'm not sure your problem is being caused by the battery - but I would change it asap when you get it running.  Have you had the fault codes read again since the cluster repair?  And does the engine try to turn over or is there just nothing at all when you turn the key?  Does the immobiliser light flash?

With it not having a silver calcium one before and it ran fine im not sure that's preventing it from starting now but good to know. 

I havent had it read again, the engine still doesnt try to turn over there is still nothing and the blank clocks when you try to start it. Imobaliser light was flashing when we got the new cluster in and it was flashing code 16 which when i googled i found it was the key not communicating to the cluster which is why i got a guy to come out and program the key to that cluster. So now when you unlock the car and put the key in the imobaliser will disable and then just flash every few minutes or so as normal. 

Im curious as to wether its now running or not. Any news