5 replies to this topic

[Youngowner93]

Hi everyone,

Asked just about everywhere else and nobody can figure out what the problem is.

Basically my father owns a '07 plate Focus 1.8 TDCi. When he first bought it, it was using an excessive amount of diesel and was almost stalling when pulling away in 2nd gear even while the car was still in motion. Nobody could figure out why so after a bit of research he took it to Ford and they did a software update on the ECU. It fixed all the problems the fuel economy went up, turbo was more responsive and it pulled away in 2nd much better.

Before this he owned a Mk1 Focus 1.8 TDDi which returned about 55-56 mpg on a run with 130,000 on the clock.

Has anybody else having the same problems on any of the 1.8 diesel range? (Transit connect, Mondeo?) Looking across the ford forums there are a lot of people out there having problems and nobody seems to know why.

[Wise Old Elf]

I have an 2004 1.8 TDCI Focus.

Mine stalls in second and always has and I bought it new. I was told it was normal by the Main dealer. They say when you lift the clutch pedal and the drive is taken up the revs drop (makes sense) the ECU gets the engine speed from the sensor and as it is low assumes the engine is stopping and cuts the fuel off.

I was told it was an 'engine characteristic' and not a fault. Keeping the revs up when cold helps; I have got used to it now. I get 55 to a gallon and have done 160,000 miles still going strong.

Jason

[minimanclive]

I had a 1.8 TDCI Focus on an 04 number plate, Just over 100k on the clock. Always a pain to start up. So much so I replaced the starter motor which helped a bit, but didn't cure it. Apparently they have a dual mass flywheel. Imagine it's something like two metal flywheels sandwiched with a bit of rubber in the middle. These break up and cause lots of problems. The starting problem is one of them, and it also throws the flywheel sensor out and there's play between the flywheel and the crank. It's a big job to replace.

[Jordie]

dual mass flywheels are expensive, they might do a solid flywheel conversion as they do for the transits. Starter motors usually fail on these when the clutches need doing due to the clutch dust.

Cant comment on the original fault of stalling and fuel usage.

[M J W J]

Cam belts seam to be a common thing with ford diesels as they go ping. Ford say you should change them every 100k miles or every 10 years. Almost every other car make I have come across say about 40k miles before a belt change.

The second one on my dads focus went after 60k miles. He had it serviced the day before. We asked Ford did they check it and their reply was that there was no need to check it. In the end we had to replace the complete engine. The broken belt did too much damage. It wasn't just a case of bent valves.

My dad's starter motor packed up. We had to change the flywheel, clutch and starter in the end.

[Youngowner93]

Yeah DMF's are an absolute fortune to replace. There are solid mass conversions available for both the MK1 and MK2 Focus though so all hope isn't lost.