Focus 1.6 TDCI Intermittant Power Loss

[jimmyVX]

I have fairly recently bought a 57reg Focus from a dealer with around 66k miles on the clock. The car has run faultlessly until I notied a slight power loss the other night. It was possible to feel the power coming on and backing off, not really viscously but noticeable. It was around 1900rpm on a steady thottle. Any ideas what it could be? Thanks in advance.

[elliotff]

This might help:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t...

""Problem was that egr valve needs replacing. Ford dealer quoted £339 all in for the job. Just wondering if this job is likely to be much less from an indie.... and whether any particular expertise or diagnostic equipment needed to do this?""

[Zad]

elliotff said:

This might help:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t...

""Problem was that egr valve needs replacing. Ford dealer quoted £339 all in for the job. Just wondering if this job is likely to be much less from an indie.... and whether any particular expertise or diagnostic equipment needed to do this?""

EGRs are certainly notorious on pretty much all diesels. I would get a quote from a local independent garage though, it is possible to remove the EGR and fit a blanking plate on most engines without changing it's MOT emissions at all. Some cars need an ECU tweak to tell them it isn't there, not sure if that applies to this engine. Either way, an independent will be a LOT cheaper than a main dealer.

[jimmyVX]

Many thanks for the replies. I must stress the symptoms I have are very mild, a real slight lack of power for maybe a second at a time, coming on and going off, not a total loss or into limp mode. Possibly a restricted injector?! I can live with it as it is and I think will keep an eye on it to see if it gets worse, will maybe get my local garage to plug it in when it goes for a service to see if anything is brought up.

[dilateous]

Zad said:

EGRs are certainly notorious on pretty much all diesels.

And petrols. From what I can ascertain the EGR problem is a nice little earner for garages as it doesn't always produce an error code - we'll have to give it a detailed investigation £££, sir.

Zad said:

it is possible to remove the EGR and fit a blanking plate on most engines without changing it's MOT emissions at all.

I'm not sure but I think that only applies to the UK.

[djchid80]

I had the exact same issue on a focus 1.6 tdci, felt like a very slight instantaneous power drop at steady rpm. Progressively developed and got worse over the matter of a few years (and 50k miles), every time it did this there would be a slight puff of black smoke coming out the back mostly noticeable in the night in the headlights of the car behind.
Towards the end the car sometimes would not start at all, the powertrain red light came on randomly a couple of times and the engine cut out completely twice during driving and restarted after a couple of seconds, with all instrument cluster needles dropping to zero and the odometer reading dashes instead of numbers.
Apparently this is a common instrument cluster fault where the lead free solder connections develop cracks. Taking the instrument cluster apart and resoldering the main socket solder joints was a fairly straight forward 30min job, the hardest part was removing the needles and getting them back in the right place.
The car now drives as it should, with no power drops and much smoother.

Edited by djchid80 on Sunday 27th January 09:47