geraintthomas

Western programme it for you when you give them your car details, so when it arrives it'll be a straight swap. From memory, everything came to about £670 (parts and labour). What I found was the turning circle was miles better after changing it!

Lavernock Service Station, Penarth, South Wales. It ended up being a bit more than that for labour but wasn't too bad. And yup, the steering rack is better than new!

If you can take a wheel off and have a screwdriver, you could do it yourself for less than £20...

Sounds very much like a speed sensor - all of those modules rely on the vehicles speed. However, your TCS and ABS would also be disabled. Do you have these errors? Get your battery checked at a garage, it's free and that'd be the first thing I'd do.

Solved: Like Allan, my rear ABS sensors were the culprit. Replaced the sensors, reset the modules on the car and the car is now back to normal. Thanks for the help everyone.

You can't just replace the rack with any second hand one, if that's what you've done. The rack needs programming to your car, but there's only two companies that I know of that do it (unless someone can help?); one of which is Ford themselves who refuse to program a second hand rack. It has to be new and sold by them (over £1,000 ex labour). The other is Western Power Steering who also won't program it, but they can sell you a refurbished rack that's programmed to your car having given them your registration details (£475 ex labour). I did the latter. I'm told the reprogramming involves quite a specialised piece of hardware that no one has, so I wish you all the best in finding it!

I've just replaced the two front ABS sensors, and it still hasn't fixed the problem. It still has to do with speed. The errors only appear the moment I start moving, and not at all when idle, even after stressing the alternator. To add to this, whenever the car is turned off, then back on again, the only lasting dashboard light is the ABS light, which is making me think an ABS sensor fault. All other modules aside from stop/start can be turned back on successfully when restarting the car (forward alert, lane assist, etc). When moving, they all fail again. I'm wondering whether it could be: - The rear ABS sensors - The alternator not giving enough power to the modules that use the car's speed. When the car moves and those modules are in use, it freaks out. Here's a video: I'm not sure what to try next. Any thoughts?

They're magnetic rings in these. Update... I took both ABS sensors out. The nearside sensor was completely covered in gunk, whereas the offside sensor was fine. I cleaned them both regardless, and inserted a small brush into the hole to clean any debris that may be on the rings. Re-fitted, wiped the codes, but they came back the moment I pulled away from the house. I did two more tests. One where I wiped the codes and waited for 20-25 minutes outside the house, putting stress on the alternator. The car was fine, until I pulled away. The next test I wiped the codes, and after starting the car I pulled away straight away without waiting around, and no surprise they came back straight away the moment I pulled away. It's definitely coinciding with the speed of the vehicle. Given that ABS sensors on the fronts are about £10, I'll go ahead and replace them both, considering I've already got them loose and out of the hubs. If one has failed, the other could follow. For that money it's probably worth it. I'll let you know what happens once I replace them.

I was thinking multimeter, but I'm not too sure what I'm expecting. A constant voltage between the two pins, looking for the one that's reading over/under the rest?

It does. What should I look for?

Update... I disconnected the negative for a few seconds, then re-connected it, purely to see the results. All of the dash errors disappeared aside from the ABS. After plugging in the Autel and erasing all of the previously displayed codes on the modules, the car was back to normal. I sat on the driveway for about 15-20 minutes with the aircon on, front/rear heaters on, occasionally revving the engine to put stress onto the alternator, but it remained fine. Until I drove off the driveway. It must have reached 10mph before all of the errors sprung back onto the dashboard. Now that's got me thinking that it's a wheel sensor issue. Thinking about it, all of these errors could well be connected to a wheel sensor. Stop/start needs to sense if the car has indeed stopped, TCS and ABS are obviously connected to wheel speed, same as cruise control. Forward alert possibly, perhaps when it applies the brakes. Lane assist and hill assist, possibly. I'll keep digging, but is there any way of diagnosing a bad wheel speed sensor?

I haven't, due to the stop/start button also being illuminated, which isn't part of the cluster. The Autel also shows faults on all of these modules and has no cluster fault. The faults can be cleared, but return after 30 seconds of driving. The voltage is also low for an alternator, so none of this particularly points to a cluster failure. Good suggestion though. I had a similar problem when I bought the car 2.5 years ago, the car started to freak out. A new battery and resetting the modules had cured the issue. Modern cars with stop/start tech tend to go a bit loopy when the power delivery drops below a certain threshold, which seems to be what's happening again. I'm convinced it's an alternator issue, but want to see if anyone's got any insight or any other ways of testing to confirm it before I go purchasing parts. For instance, a friend mentioned that it could be a wheel sensor issue - stop/start needs to sense if the vehicle has stopped, and most of the other errors rely on information about the speed of the car. But it was the 13.2v that's convinced me at the moment. Unless anyone has any other suggestions?

Car: 2012 Focus Mk3 Titanium 1.6 TDCi Hi all. Two weeks ago, the car decided to go a bit crazy all at once. I've got a lot of simultaneous module failures, which are: - Stop/Start - Traction Control - ABS - Hill Assist - Adaptive Cruise Control - Forward Alert - Lane Assist The car drives fine, having driven it to and from the garage on a stretch of motorway. The first thing that popped into my head was the battery, but this has been tested four times at two different garages - even after being left standing for a week at the garage - and it's passed. The voltage is 12.4v, but goes no lower than 12.2v when left for a long period. It's also only 2 years old. Testing the voltage at idle, it's still only 12.4v. I know these cars presumably all have Smart Charge and this readout would make sense, so I tested again under load with everything on (front and rear heaters, AC blower on full, headlights on), but I'm only getting 13.2v from the alternator. That's under as much load as I can give it. I've got an Autel computer that can read and clear the module codes. After clearing them, they come back 30 seconds after starting the car. I haven't actually read the errors yet, I really should do that... My guess is that it's a bad alternator, as 13.2v under full load sounds low, but I'm wondering if anyone could also shed some light? Thanks!

Also worth mentioning... it doesn't always do it. Odd.

Hi everyone, Focus Mk3 1.6TDCi with 151,000 on the clock (belt replaced at 117,000). On the motorway under acceleration, I can faintly hear what could only be described as injector/turbo noise. It's almost like noisy tappets, pinking, or piston slap (I'll try to get a recording soon but road noise may drown it). The noise doesn't increase/decrease with revs, happens at mid-rage revs or higher, and only under load. It won't happen when free revving the car, and if I lift off on the motorway, it disappears. The noise is almost always the same pitch (imagine a turbo hiss when you accelerate, but that hiss has a slight rattle - that's what it's like). It's kind of like a fast tapping/hissing/rattle (helpful I know). Essentially it only happens when the engine is under load and at a constant pitch, which could narrow it down to fuel injection or turbo, with the turbo spooling under acceleration, or the fuel being injected with the throttle. I thought it may have been a tear in a pipe causing some noise to escape, but I've checked all of the pipes. I've also checked the turbo for any play in the impeller, and whilst there's a tiny bit of radial play (acceptable), there's no axial play, so the turbo seems fine too. The impeller doesn't spin freely mind, you have to push it with your finger for it to turn (you can't spin it). Then I thought it could be the injector seals. The last diesel I had at high miles had leaking injector seals which resulted in black goo and carbon build up around the injectors. The seals are cheap, but the job is quite a pain to do and it's something I wasn't looking forward to doing. With 151,000 on the clock, it's almost certain that mine would need replacing soon. However, I stripped the top of the engine cover and removed all of the gubbins to take a look at them... they're perfect. I don't know how with this many miles, but the head is squeaky clean around the injectors. It's just clean metal. They also look relatively new, so I'm wondering if they've been changed before I purchased the car. It's a load off my mind knowing they're fine. So the injector seals are fine, the turbo doesn't seem to have any play (though it's a tad stiff, but I've got nothing to compare it to), the noise is only noticeable on the motorway under load, it doesn't change pitch with the RPM, and sounds like a rattly hiss. I'm wondering if it's in fact the turbo, or if I just need to perform an oil change with some decent oil... Any ideas? Apologies for being vague! EDIT: may be worth mentioning, there's a little bit of oil in the turbo/air intake pipe.