Ford Focus 2003 1.6 Zetec SE - Speedo and rev counter drop offArchived Message
Posted by Bill Tait on November 5, 2006, 9:06 pm
Hi guys, Hope somebody can help with this one, it has been a nightmare so far! Got this car in for an Mot and the customer said that every now and then the speedo, rev counter and mileometer would drop off but would come back on a few seconds later. Did the Mot and when driving it to the station noticed that the temperature guage dropped off and the engine warning light came on as well as the other ones that he mentioned to me. I said I would look into it and get back to him. After going through the archives and reading about all the problems with this vehicle I thought we would get it back in again, the customer was going on holiday for 8 weeks and said he would leave the car with me. When he dropped it off he said that the battery warning light had breifly come on and then went off again and the dials etc dropping off was getting worse. We did a code read with SP ACR4 and it came up with the fuel gauge level sensor faulty and no other codes. What with 8 weeks to play with and plenty of other work to get on with, the car was just moved outside and around in the yard and put back in at night. I noticed the gauges were getting wors and the battery light was coming on more frequently however, if I switched the engine off and then back on again the light would go out and stay off till the next start cycle also the multi-function warning light was staying on at the same time as the battery light was. The situation now is the engine will start and run as if nothing was wrong with it but the engine warning light, multi-function light and battery light stay on all the time. There is no temp gauge, rev counter, speedo, trip or mile recorder working, just dashes, although it breifly shows the trip as two zeros and the miles as 25448 which is all that the car has done. The oil light, handbrake light light, low fuel light and the fuel gauge all work as normal. Our code reader will no longer communicate with the ECU although it will communicate with the ABS and SRS side of things. So far I have removed and cleaned all the earths that I can see beside the headlamps and on the a pillars, renewed the road speed sensor, the battery and the alternator and it still remains the same. If I put a volt meter on the battery at idle it reads approxamately 14.4 volts and when I put on dipped headlamps and the HRW the volts drop down to about 12.8 to 13v, if I put on the front screen and the heater booster the volts drop down to between 11.3 an 11.4v. this is even after renewing the alternator and the battery. The old battery did have a faulty cell in it so needed to be renewed anyway. I dont have much hair and it looks like I am going to have a lot less if this keeps on going down this road. The customer is due back from holiday now and I would really appreciate any help with this problem that anybody could come up with. Sorry this post is so long but I thought it best to explain the whole situation in one go rather than having to post a little bit of information at a time. Thanks in advance, Bill Tait.