Exploding Focus TDCI

Amazing; after days of waiting…1st it took 8 days after getting the car towed into the Ford La Plaine for them to give us the diagnosis. The TDCI Turbo was blown up! Gee. You think so? The pompier told us that when we said that there was a huge cloud of white smoke from the engine before it died. It was obvious it was the turbo from the first second that the tow truck saw us. 8 days to tell us this??? 

Then 2 weeks of writing to Ford asking them to take some responsibility for what we consider a vice cachée. And we find out that they didn’t write to Ford at all~only to Ford France. 

Then a week or more waiting for Ford to respond and another for them to tell us that the response is final. 

No service. But they are willing to tell us to pay for their bad service - 150€ for a tech to look under the hood. 

And these people expect us to buy a new car from them? Our back has given us a line of credit to buy a new car, and these guys are kissing it good-bye. Sales must be good~!

Hundreds of posts of people who have the same or similar problem, never getting fixed.

This is horrid for Ford, horrid for Ford France and horrid for all us out there who have this hidden vice.

Example 1 -
http://www.rac.co.uk/web/forum/showthread.php?t=957
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I have had ongoing problems since February this year and so far no joy.. My 1.8 TDCI Focus lives at the local ford dealer comming home for brief holidays of usualy two to three weeks… It refuses to start, glow plugs have been changed, engine temp sensor, glow plug relay, ECU and lastly the starter……
yesterday it died on the M6 with the glow plug light flashing, right in front of the RAC control room… back to the dealer again….

MartinL
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jammapic

Hi,

I’ve heard of similar problems actually; my mate had a Focus TDCi with exactly the same thing.

You could always try http://www.tdciforum.co.uk there’s lots of specific information on there!

JP
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MartinL

The dealer told me last night that they think the ECU is faulty, again, but Ford are sending their own tech to check it out…. It’ll never be reliable, I think they are just clutching at straws

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pompey.lad

Just returned from garage with an intermittent cutting out problem on Focus TDCI 1.8 Zetec. Mainly when engine warm, revs drop and then would cut out at any speed, even on motorway!! Not nice! Happened several times on each journey. First local garage said no reading on diagnostics but today Ford have found fault straight away and replaced the camshaft (CMP) sensor. Just driven 30 miles and no problem so fingers crossed!

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Well, we also had the CMP replaced after a 165 euro towing charge and the engine dying while going down the narrow, winding hill entering La Turbie down from the golf road. Scary in the dark with no power anything. Not to long later, the same thing happened and another new CMP didn’t do anything. 3 days sitting in the garage was what it took to “repair” the hidden vice - vice cachée. After a few times of this, the Turbo just up and blew smoke and died. Thanks for caring Ford.

Just last year we went to our favorite relatives in the Camargue. On the way home, going uphill on the A8 through the beautiful hills of Provence, we were zipping along when that squishy feel came to the gas pedal. After 4 years you kind of get used to it. You get a decrease in power, then fluab fluab.

You never get used to the feeling of knowing that your engine is going to die soon and you have seconds to pull into the emergency lane;
1st - Fight the panic.
2nd - Figure out how fast those trucks are going in the lane next to you.
3rd - Figure out how to communicate that you are going to have to interfere with their forward progress.
4th - Coast to the side of the road.
5th - Worry about whether you will need to be towed from here or whether the car will start in a few minutes.

That time we waited patiently for a few minutes and the car started up. Joy.

I’ll bet this is the same thing that would happen if the turbo were somehow disconnected from the car at full power. They spent so much time on the power train, repeatedly finding nothing, and they admit that the computer analysis doesn’t check the turbo…yet it is part of the power train too!!! and no doubt filled with sensors.

Thanks for the emails - combined with the internet links of the Focus dying on the side of the road, these make great reading. 

The continuation of our history, the link between the constantly failing engine and the turbo that blew up, will have to wait until next post. It is amazing, in retrospect, that no one checked this obvious part of the power system. 

But here it is, years later, many stops on the expressway, many nights in tow trucks and cabs, and so many mechanics who gave us a car still in need of repair. 

There is a concept in French law called ‘vice cachet’ - the hidden defect. The manufacturer is to take responsibility for 10 years in such a case. 

Any experts who can fill in more data on this remedy? …and p.s.-don’t stop sending in your car’s history.

We loved our Focus TDCI. I have told people it was the best car we ever had. Neighbors bought them, friends across the sea bought them.

But there was one niggling problem. The engine would just cut out…die…no power to the brakes, no power on the steering…

As you know, we live in the mountains, some places being pretty steep grades. Power going out in those conditions really wake you up. First time it happened, it was night. That really wakes one up.

The car wouldn’t restart, even the next morning. The tow truck guy took it to Ford, someone fished up an idea, they replaced a sensor on the crankshaft that has some timing function, everyone laughed at such a simple jolly solution, I laughed at the 145 euro towing charge and invoice for replacing a 35 euro part…ha ha ha.

When it happened again I got a ride to the Ford dealer, bought the part, installed it into the non-functioning engine and sure enough, nothing happened. Tow the car in, but this time they can’t see the car for a couple of days…busy place this Ford La Plaine, but since they are the big Ford dealership, we figured they would be able to trace down this problem better than the smaller places around town.

This became endemic. Ford La Plaine always took 2 or 3 days to look at the car, and it always worked after sitting around for a few days. They took out the gas tank, they tested all over the fuel delivery system, they gave us the car back without charging us…for as one of the technicians said, I feel bad that we can’t find the problem. 

He loaned us a hand pump so that we could try to pump gas straight into the engine the next time it happened. Cool. There I was at 9PM at the corner of Fast and Busy in North Nice, gazole spraying in my face as I figured out how to cram diesel fuel into the engine. Made no difference of course, except changing the taste of the pizza that we got from the van that was 20 meters away. We got towed again that night, and of course the car sat for a couple days and of course, it worked when the technician tried it and of course, the defect was never found.

We have lost power on the A8 expressway coming from Provence, we have lost it in the city, we have lost it at the airport within minutes of getting the car back from Ford. Sometimes it would restart, sometimes not. Sometimes waiting a while would help, sometimes not. The defect was never found…until it happened again with an exploding consequence…which will be the topic of the next post.

But what we want to do is find experiences from others who are searching the internet, looking to resolve the hidden defect that this engine appears to have - stopping for no reason, getting to the Ford dealer and they can’t find anything…we see it from others on other forums, but we want to collect them all. It may even be that Peugeot engines have the same problem…I’ve seen a trickle of reports. The problem doesn’t get solved because they focus on the fuel systems, but my guess is that it is really in the turbo.

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