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Just got the keys to my new unit so I can start filling it with stuff! I have mentioned here before that I do a bit of powder coating for my own stuff just out in the shed but wanted to have a go at doing it on a commercial scale. I have a lot of contacts in the machinery trade etc and an interest in cars and bikes so it makes some sense to me. My oven is being built right now and I don’t know when it will arrive...but here’s the space as it is now still empty. I will update this thread with progress and let me know your thoughts of course.

I've been using my app to warm my car up because its a 2 minute walk to the to secure car park from where I work ( had a nice warm seat tonight, as long as I remember to set everything to MAX in the morning before shutting the car off) Its handy for checking tyre pressures before I go on a long journey, but mostly I use it to play 'top trumps' with another member of staff who thinks he has the better car 😄

The camera isn't great on my €20 Tesco Alcatel 1 mobile but it will do for now; I do like that covid restrictions has meant that I don't have these three elves moving around every night for another two weeks as there self isolating themselves inside a cake box for 14 days after arriving 😂

Hi, Welcome to the forums, most air horn kits come with there own waterproof relay kit, there are a few advantages to keeping away from the original relay box; especially the one in the engine bay because they have a common problem of leaking allowing water to bridge connections causing the horn and wipers as well as indicators to activate at random; even when the car is parked unattended. Im on here ten years now and have created some guides for the MK2.5 focus which most of them also work on the MK2 if interested:

I did French at school , German and Spanish for a while. French I did to cse level ( GCSE of my era. ) Couldn't string a sentence together now in any language except for English ( most of the time)

Hi all, Im new to the forum and wondered if you guys could help me please. My son has just purchased a 2011 Fiesta Studio 1.25 for his first car . Really pleased with the car apart from the speedo. It’s very erratic and fluctuates a lot . Sometimes it will stick at 30 mph for a while then move, you can sit at 70 and it will indicate 45! . I’ve done a bit of research and this is what I’ve done so far........ so erratic Speedo and odometer doesn’t work but NO Eml and all dash lights work perfectly I did the gauge test and all gauges work perfectly. No fault codes stored through the internal diagnostic but I haven’t yet plugged it in. I jacked the car up and looked underneath for the VSS , couldn’t find it , spoke with Ford and it doesn’t have one!! I assume it takes a reading from the ABS speed ring ??? Anyone else experienced these issues? We bought the car with a few issues as a father/ son project . We’ve done everything else and this is the last job to complete . We can’t let it beat us !!!! Any help would be truly appreciated. Kind regards Andy

Thanks , I’ll have a look 👍

The ribbon cables are behind the a-pillar trim I think. You'll probably find yours have nothing plugged into them however.

You can keep it. I hate driving in fog, but luckily not seen any bad ones around this way since the mid 1980's. I remember driving home one night at about 2 am from work and not being able to see more than about 2 cats eyes in front. Got totally disorientated and couldn't do more than about 5-10mph. Once the cats eye section of the road ended I think I must've hit the kerb about every 50 yards.

Fair enough if they work for you there's no reason not to use them. If they are set correctly and pointing to the nearside and downwards they won't affect other drivers. Can't say I'd be likely to change mine to LED's though given that I've not seen fog around this part of the UK that requires them to be on.

I agree with his comment about front fog lights being pretty useless in fog, I've never found them to improve vision over the standard dipped beam headlights. He wasn't suggesting the front fogs were too bright, or dazzling other drivers, just that they had little effect. It's the inappropriate use of the high intensity rears that he is commenting on. I've been commuting about 70 miles a day to work between 7 - 8 am and back home around 4-5pm for the last 10 years or so and I have never seen any fog around this way that would require the use of Fog lights. In fact the only time I've ever used them was on a drive up to Cumbria about 2 years ago when visibilty was below about 50 Metres. The front fogs only seemed to illuminate the road a bit brighter about 10 feet in front which is pretty useless.

It’s not so far!

That was just a quick eBay search, there are cheaper ones about. Should be correct as long as you use the Febi part number there. Wheel nuts are another of @JW1982 area of expertise. If there are any decent solid aftermarkets, I'm sure he'll know of them!

yes shop around 🙂

Hi Tom, Yes is was great fun 😩 1) Thank you, nice to know. 2) Thank you again! I thought I would do the best job I can to ensure it lasts, as I know it will fail again at some point. 3) It seems the previous owner/s have let the tyre places and garages go crazy with the air tools for sure- more than half the nuts have the caps slightly deforming or loose. The front passenger wheel tyre was changed recently I can tell and the nuts were extremely over tightened and seized on- I presume an air tool was used. I got all the normal nuts off with great difficulty as the caps were deformed and spinning but had to destroy the locking nut to get it off. These places which don't torque the nuts after removing are a pain. Ah lucky you with the Ford contact lol. Im finding it so difficult to find the correct wheel nuts as they all look very similar to me and I don't trust all sellers and their fitment lists. I wouldn't want to fit anything incorrect especially to the wheels. I would like to, if anyone can recommend or advise, to use a set of one piece solid nuts so there are no caps on them, eliminating this issue with the caps. Being aftermarket I guess quality would be an issue and hard to judge unless other members have any experience with a particular brand or set. Can anyone advise or recommend? If not, I will go for the OE style as per your link. Is that the best price they go for or is that just a quick searched link for example purposes? Thank you again guys. EDIT: found the same ones at £2.25 a wheel nut, it says they will fit: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20x-New-Genuine-Febi-Bilstein-Wheel-Nut-29463-Top-German-Quality/402266032221?epid=1011043285&hash=item5da8ec885d:g:uGEAAOSwhLZcnf6M Also found some solid ones: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/16-x-Chrome-Solid-Ford-Wheel-Nuts-fits-Ford-Focus-ST170-OEM-Genuine-Alloys/124422199165?hash=item1cf824177d:g:7kEAAOSwePdfoXJy

I have a manual Focus Titanium 1.0 125ps built in January of this year (bought in June/July) with about 5.5k miles on the clock. Love it ... a delightfully quiet and smooth car to drive, only emitting a pleasing, almost sporty sound when one pushes it. It is not the mild hybrid version but does, I believe, have cylinder deactivation (which my dealer told me I would never notice). To date I have not experienced any vibration at any speed so, having read this thread, I was interested to see if at the specific revs/gears given above I could induce the car to vibrate. At 2,375 revs (or thereabouts) in 6th my car did 68mph (a speed, I have to say, I rarely travel at unless constrained by traffic). Set on speed control for 5 miles I can confirm I noticed no vibration whatsoever, just the usual v slight wind noise from the wing mirror. Returning I controlled the speed with my right foot and periodically let the rev counter move between 2,250 and 2,500 revs (in the latter case the car was doing 71mph on the speedo). Again, no vibration whatsoever. I did notice on the tripometer my mpg figure improved considerably over the journey, but I have no evidence at all that cylinder deactivation was actually working. I'd have a word with your dealer if I was you ... a modern car like this should not vibrate (memories of my dear father's Vauxhall Victor in the days before people like me/us had heard of wheel balancing).

Yes, your Fiesta would have had the previous wet belt engine which didn't have the deactivation feature. I've only briefly driven the later chain cam version but I also felt it didn't seem as smooth and quiet as the previous version in my Fiesta. The deactivation feature seems to be a bit self-defeating if people end up driving in sport mode to avoid it as they find it unpleasant! Just another of those features to shave off the odd gram of CO2 under test conditions, I guess. I have driven a few VW group cars which deactivate 2 out of 4 cylinders in a similar way, and can't say I noticed the system operating at all, presumably because the 4 cylinder is inherently better balanced?

Could have been a Mouse nesting in the Ductwork at some time.

Best of luck in the new venture 👍

Quick update. Plugged in again today and all fault codes that were cleared , remained cleared. Tested the ABS and that was fine . Took it out on the road and viewed the live data from the speed sensors which were all reliable. All pointing towards instrument cluster. Ordered secondhand unit and will report back once fixed.

This is completely normal. These vibrations are caused by cilinder deactivation. This is just a characteristic of the latest 1.0 ECOboost engine and not a problem. When Sport Mode is selected the cilinder deactivation is disabled so that is exactly the reason why the vibrations are not present when Sport Mode is selected.

If we actually want proper vision in fog then we should use yellow lights, not blinding icicle white.

Something I like and don't like. Got my classification for my masters course. Got a pass which I'm okay with but got 59% which is 1% below a merit. Will message my teacher to see if they can remark it and hopefully give that. They did state this isn't official yet and it is subject to ratification so fingers crossed it all works out.

I remember doing French in secondary school but I don't think I did it for GCSEs. The bit of London I live in has a large Turkish community so the school had Turkish as a GCSE subject. Haven't heard of one of them not getting a A* 😂. That school I think still is the worst school in the county and I got a C for English and B for maths. Still though although I went to a rubbish secondary school I managed to get in a well known university to do my final education course

I have just collected my Puma Vignale in fantastic red in an automatic. Great gearbox, very smooth and I find it responsive enough.

Glow plug light will only flash briefly until it gets much colder. You should see it on a frosty morning though. It doesn't actually indicate that the plugs are on, it's just on a timer depending on the temp. It'll probably start fine with just a second or two of ignition before starting. The plugs don't heat from opening the door. On modern petrols the in-tank pump starts from opening the door which may be where the confusion came from. The 1.6 TDCi uses an electronic EGR valve. I think that vacuum solenoid will be for the turbo wastegate.

On my Focus mk2 1.6TDCi I don't remember seeing the glow plug lights ever coming on, I just get in, turn the key and it starts. I may be wrong, but I think the glow plugs start to heat up when you unlock the car, therefore have warmed up before you turn the key. Sorry can't help with the item in your picture.

No, I certainly didn't know Amazon didn't have a log on for ROI, Lenny. Knowing them though, they'll probably find a way round it! I did do French and German at school, forgotten most of it now, can just about manage to order a beer or a coffee and that's it. Problem for English speakers is in most countries they learn English as a second language anyway, which is logical as the use of many languages is limited to one or two countries (e.g. Flemish, Norwegian, etc). I used to do business with firms in Europe but when telephoning normally found once I'd got past the switchboard, the person I was calling would greet me in perfect English. One thing I have found though, is in France they appreciate your making the effort even though once they realise you are "un rosbif" they quickly switch to English!😀

I might be wrong here, but it seems to me that 90% of the faults that people are blaming the battery for are down to the monitoring system (BMS), especially on the later models, ie nothing at all wrong with the battery, it's just that the car "thinks" it needs charging. Hence it cuts out the high loads, stop / start, heated elements etc. I would try resetting the BMS to start with, there are plenty of threads already on this. I think this will solve the problem in the majority of cases.

I don't normally agree with graffiti but....

I know the garage didn't kerb it as I stayed with the car while they did the service. Normally I would get a courtesy car and go off to work and pick it up on the way home. But due to covid restrictions they are no longer providing courtesy cars so I stayed at the garage and could see them working on my car from where I was sitting. Prior to this vehicle I had a MK7.5 ST-Line 140 which although it had great handling, it was a bit twitchy on the motorway in comparison to the MK8. The one thing I noticed when I got the MK8 was that it was a more stable cruising experience. Now it feels worse than the MK7.5 was and has a definite notch in the middle as I described. Took the wheels off this weekend and switched them back to front, will see how that feels on my commute next week.

🤣🤣 not worth it ! 🤣🤣

Fixed it, had to swap wiring around and get all the electric window stuff out.

My mistake , the Odometer does work it’s just the speedo that’s erratic . Will get it plugged it at some point next week

Yes I always have that off, but I checked in case they had turned it on at the garage, but it's definitely off. I did turn it on to see if it was still working, which it is, but it's the same with it on or off.

The procedure I describe is for cleaning the circuit board. Not for resoldering.

Thank you. I’ll take a look. Would it be all 4 wheels or does it take a feed from a particular wheel?

Based on the pictures it is definitely worth a try to clean the circuit board of the ACM. The part that is contaminated is the amplifier IC. The amplifier IC has an integrated protection circuit. It will simply disable the speaker output when a short circuit (or low resistance) between the IC pins is detected. The circuit board can be cleaned by performing the following steps: * Submerse the circuit board in warm water with a mild, non aggressive cleaning agent for approximately 15 minutes. * Gently clean the circuit board using a soft brush. * Rinse the circuit board with clean water. * Pre-heat an oven to 100 degrees Celsius. * Put the circuit board in the oven for approximately 30 Minutes. All components on the circuit board can easily withstand a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius. * Let the circuit board cool down. * Assemble and test the ACM. In the past I successfully repaired many Focus MK2/MK2.5 and MK3/MK3.5 ACM's. Even a few that had been stored in humid conditions for an extensive period.

Thanks for your suggestion. It is the wire issue. The local garage just used 30 minutes to fixed for £45. Everything is working now 🙂

Part number BM5T-18C815-XE (Finis 1747512) has the following specifications: From: 03-01-2011 To: 08-08-2011 ICE-Mid Audio Branded + DAB, With 9 Radio Speakers Branded = Sony Audio System. The fact that it is a 9-speaker Sony audio system that is based on the old Bluetooth/Voicecontrol system limits the amount of suitable replacement part numbers. The following part numbers should be compatible: BM5T-18C815-XA BM5T-18C815-XB BM5T-18C815-XC BM5T-18C815-XD BM5T-18C815-XN Part number BM5T-18C815-XN is the latest available version of this 9-speaker ACM. This part number supports both the old Bluetooth/Voicecontrol system and the later SYNC 1.0/1.1 system.

Well I'm sure you are good at that 🤣 Maybe my Nozzle is too big 😉

Can't say I'm a real fan of the easy fuel thing. Very fiddly to get the nozzle in just right so it doesn't keep cutting out. I usually have to try about 4 or 5 times until I can find just the right spot for it to allow the fuel to flow. Was the same on my previous Fiesta too. Seems like an unnecessary complication to the old style fuel cap which I never had any problems with.

Of course slick tyres will give more grip in dry conditions there is more rubber to road contact. The only reason for the grooves in the tyres i.e. tread, is to get rid of the water in wet conditions. Water is not easily compressible so without any channels for the water to escape from under your tyres your car will just float on a thin layer of water and you will have no grip. If we could guarantee there would never be any rain on our roads we would all be driving round on slicks.

I wonder what all these boy racers are going to do in 15 years time when most cars will be fully electric, stick a massive speaker on the outside to make pops and bangs and turbo whistles? 😂. For what it's worth, my advice on filter mods is to save your money and spend it on something that will improve the performance or handling instead.

I am no expert on this but I'm always very wary of mixing tyre brands . Many years ago I had a MKII Toyota MR2 which came with Continental tyres had 205's on the front and 225's on the rear (think the standard fitment was 195 front 205 rear) My front offside tyre blew when I hit a large chunk of wood in the dark. I couldn't get hold of another Conti to match as I was told at the time they had stopped making them in that size. (this was before the Internet so couldn't search around for myself). I got a brand new Goodyear Eagle of the same size instead. My other good conti on the front was only about 4 months old so not worn. It was lethal under braking in the wet, would pull quite strongly into the kerb and squirm around. About a week later I decided it was too dangerous and got another Goodyear for the front.It was fine after that under braking. Sadly the Goodyears were nowhere near as good as the conti's, lost a lot of front end grip overall.

If I had no family, no friends and no neighbours I’d consider a Dacia ..

If there was actually low oil pressure or temporarily no oil pressure the problem may be caused by a defective variable ratio oil pump. Despite being rare I have heard of these problems a few times before. Another possible cause may be a defective oil pressure switch. However be aware that the Focus MK4 has a different 1.0 ECOboost engine than the older Focus MK3/MK3.5. The 1.0 ECOboost that is installed into the MK4 is a further development of the older 1.0 ECOboost. Many things were changed only to improve fuel economy and emissions. In my opinion the new 1.0 ECOboost is not an improvement. As a result of all fuel economy and emission related modifications the engine runs less smooth than the old 1.0 ECOboost. It also makes a bit more noise as a result of the timing chain. The older 1.0 ECOboost did have a wetbelt which was considerably more quiet.

Had my ST-Line X 140 from new (2019) model. Has been running perfectly until I had a service a few weeks ago. Currently on just over 17,000 miles on the clock. Standard 18000 miles or 2 years service as per the Ford Schedule at a local Ford dealership I have been using for the past 4 years. No problems were flagged up during the service, tyres were about 6mm tread depth (5.5 on inner edges at the front) and about 6.5 mm on the rear with even wear. Basically they changed the oil and filter, checked everything was as expected and handed it back to me. The week after that was a fairly windy one and as per normal it was a bit twitchy on the motorways with the strong side gusts but nothing unusual. However since then with the winds back to virtually nothing I have a strange handling/steering Issue. It feels very vague and twitchy when trying to stay in a straight line on the motorway, seems to want to follow every contour of the road and there's a strange central notch to the steering. Hard to describe really, but with the wheel dead straight there is a point where it is solid and stable, but moving the wheel just a fraction (feels like 1 mm either side) and it suddenly feels very light. Feels like there is a notch dead centre that you have to overcome then it's too light, i.e. none of the increased resistance you get with increasing speed. I checked the tyre pressures which I do on a weekly basis anyway and I always have them at the recommended 33 front and 26 rear for light loads under 100mph. Seems the garage had set them to 35 front and 35 rear, so readjusted them to the normal 33 and 26 . It felt a bit more stable but still with the notch at the centre and not as controllable as usual. Seems very floaty at motorway speeds but not noticeable on the twisty 60mph country lanes. I checked the wheel nuts were all done up to the correct torque and didn't find any that were loose. I've never hit any kerbs or pot holes since I've owned it, spends most of it's life up and down the motorway at 70 ish. Many years ago I had a Toyota MR2 which was a bit twitchy in a straight line, turned out to be worn dampers but I doubt that my Fiestas ones are worn out in 17,000 miles of normal road driving. I have spoken to the garage and they want me to take it in for a check but due to the current Covid situation I can't get a courtesy car so would have to take a day off work, unfortunately I don't have any days holiday left to take. I get the impression that it's not a mechanical linkage/shocks wear issue but more to do with the electronic steering assistance. Anyone have any ideas or experienced anything like this before?

Hi , It appears our front screen is heated , can clearly see the filament. I can’t find the switch to operate it . I thought it was supposed to be in the centre of the blower switch but ours is just a blank . Any thoughts /suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks 2011 Ford Fiesta studio 1.25

Thanks for the reply . Its definitely got the screen but no switch 🤔