Any Known Coolant Problems with Ford 1.5 Ecoboost?

Any Known Coolant Problems with Ford 1.5 Ecoboost?

Author
Discussion

paqs

Original Poster:

32 posts

170 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
Having decided to avoid the 1.0 Ecoboost due its various coolant loss issues we decided to hold out for a 1.5 Ecoboost and bought a Focus zetec s 2015. It was bought with a report stating coolant level correct but actually needed a 1.5 litre top up!

Took it to dealer who pressure tested and found no fault with the coolant system.

Logged level cold this morning, 4 mile drive, let it cool for 2 hours then checked and its dropped a bit already.

So are there any known faults with the 1.5 ecoboost losing coolant?

Krikkit

26,997 posts

188 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
Should've bought a 1.0 cos' it's fixed! Sorry, unhelpful. tongue out

paqs

Original Poster:

32 posts

170 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
Krikkit said:
Should've bought a 1.0 cos' it's fixed! Sorry, unhelpful. tongue out
I'm not convinced it is though because there are at least 3 variants of coolant problems on the 1.0 models the latter of which is an engine case machining issue where the seal behind the water pump leaks.

GroundEffect

13,864 posts

163 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
I designed it...I fking hope not!

IanCress

4,409 posts

173 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
I've got a 1.5 Ecoboost and have no coolant issue. Never heard of any issues being reported either.

The only issue I have with it is the woeful off boost performance. I've driven plenty of modern turbo petrol cars and never found one as flat as the 1.5 ecoboost when off boost.

paqs

Original Poster:

32 posts

170 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
IanCress said:
I've got a 1.5 Ecoboost and have no coolant issue. Never heard of any issues being reported either.

The only issue I have with it is the woeful off boost performance. I've driven plenty of modern turbo petrol cars and never found one as flat as the 1.5 ecoboost when off boost.
Dealer has told us to monitor the levels so I guess that's all we can do for now, when I first took the cap off the header tank it was extremely tight, took a lot force to get off, no evidence of it being cross threaded though, cap seals look good and if I take if off 10 mins after cool down can hear the pressure release so its holding pressure for a while.

When we put the bonnet up this morning (engine cold unstarted) to check the level, bubbles could be seen coming out from the main rubber pipe in the bottom of the header tank, seemed a bit odd, could there be air in the system?

GroundEffect

13,864 posts

163 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
paqs said:
IanCress said:
I've got a 1.5 Ecoboost and have no coolant issue. Never heard of any issues being reported either.

The only issue I have with it is the woeful off boost performance. I've driven plenty of modern turbo petrol cars and never found one as flat as the 1.5 ecoboost when off boost.
Dealer has told us to monitor the levels so I guess that's all we can do for now, when I first took the cap off the header tank it was extremely tight, took a lot force to get off, no evidence of it being cross threaded though, cap seals look good and if I take if off 10 mins after cool down can hear the pressure release so its holding pressure for a while.

When we put the bonnet up this morning (engine cold unstarted) to check the level, bubbles could be seen coming out from the main rubber pipe in the bottom of the header tank, seemed a bit odd, could there be air in the system?
That's not bad if there's bubbles coming back up to the degas bottle. That means the routing is working as expected.

The gaps do have high force to remove in general.

It sounds like it wasn't filled perfectly from the plant tbh...


lee_erm

1,091 posts

200 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
It's interesting that Ford can't shake off this image with the 1.0. The coolant issues are long since sorted.

It's far more robust engine than low capacity VAG TSI units, which frequently suffer from equally catastrophic failure. The issues with these engines absolutely are not sorted. Yet people have no qualms buying car with a 1.4 TSI engine.

paqs

Original Poster:

32 posts

170 months

Friday 9th June 2017
quotequote all
GroundEffect said:
That's not bad if there's bubbles coming back up to the degas bottle. That means the routing is working as expected.

The gaps do have high force to remove in general.

It sounds like it wasn't filled perfectly from the plant tbh...
But I would hope service 1 (a year ago) would have spotted if it hadn't been filled correctly from new and topped it up.

Assuming it was checked, 1 year and 11k miles after that service it needed 1.5 litres of coolant, what is an acceptable amount of coolant loss? I can't recall the last time I had to top up a vehicles coolant level.

Mondeolee

1 posts

62 months

Sunday 22nd September 2019
quotequote all
Our Mondeo 1.5 Ecoboost lost its coolant on June 15th 2019 they think they’ve fixed it 3 months later, still no car though, second time in dealers 7 weeks, they’ve changed the heat exchanger, they’re doing a recall now on battery fire risk, nightmare, I’m not convinced they’ve sorted the coolant issues with the 1.5 only used it for just over 2 months, bought second hand from dealer end of March 2019 it’s a 2015 1.5 Mondeo Titanium.

SidewaysSi

10,742 posts

241 months

Sunday 22nd September 2019
quotequote all
Not sure I would touch an Eco boost. I steered a family friend away from one recently as I have heard too much about reliability issues..

He has gone for something else entirely.

J4CKO

42,824 posts

207 months

Sunday 22nd September 2019
quotequote all
SidewaysSi said:
Not sure I would touch an Eco boost. I steered a family friend away from one recently as I have heard too much about reliability issues..

He has gone for something else entirely.
Yeah, PH has several 100 plus page threads running, loads of them stranded, nobody will touch them...

There were failures, due to the "Degas pipe" on the 1 litre versions but there are millions of these engine out there now and not really hearing of many failures.

We have one, its been fine for 5 years, not sure on the 1.5 though.

Edited by J4CKO on Sunday 22 September 11:46

paqs

Original Poster:

32 posts

170 months

Monday 23rd September 2019
quotequote all
My sons car was evevtually fixed by ford, it was the intercooler buried in the manfold that was leaking, it took 2 different dealers weeks to find it, the first dealer dented a door just to really top things off.

My sister recently had a clutch fail at 9k miles on a less than 1 year old CMAX, after the usual Ford BS of "its caused by driving style" they partially backed down and funded the parts cost but refused to cover the labour.

I've been driving Mercs for quite a few years now, the engineering is so much better and when there is a problem they deal with it superbly, I had a crankshaft sensor go intermittent on a 6 month old GLE coupe, first they sent a Merc tech to my house with a van full of diagnostic kit, when he couldn't diagnose it they trailered it to the dealer, dropped me off a brand new GLE and sorted it all out with no nonsense.

Toyoda

1,557 posts

107 months

Monday 23rd September 2019
quotequote all
Did the 2.0 Ecoboost ever suffer from this?

paqs

Original Poster:

32 posts

170 months

Monday 23rd September 2019
quotequote all
Toyoda said:
Did the 2.0 Ecoboost ever suffer from this?
There are bulletins for North America on the 2.0L maybe worldwide, I wouldn't touch a Ford car now and definitely not anything with one of their crappy Ecoboost turbo engines which is probably pretty much all petrol models including the RS range

The 2.0L bulletin reads:-

"3/30/2018 6275 - 2015-2018 Various Vehicles - 2.0L EcoBoost - Engine Runs Rough With Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs) P0300, P0301, P0302, P0303, P0304 And/Or P0316
Some 2015-2018 Fusion/MKZ/MKC/Escape/Edge vehicles equipped with a 2.0L EcoBoost engine may exhibit a runs rough condition with DTCs P0300, P0301, P0302, P0303, P0304 and/or P0316. This may be due to coolant intrusion due to corrosion on the engine block."

mmonsterchops

1 posts

37 months

Thursday 14th October 2021
quotequote all
I have a 2015 Ford Mondeo 1.5l ecoboost. I am having the coolant problem and have been told by Ford that there is likely to be head gasket damage and so may need changing. The ball park figure for this at the moment is about £2500 (That's just off the top of his head). So a short history of the problem. The car started to sound a little rough upon starting the engine. It would then not sound too bad after a few minutes driving but still didn't sound right.

Then whilst driving one day the temperature shot from normal to max temperature in a matter of a second. Having checked the coolant bottle it was empty. Gently loosening the lid led to the bottle self filling again but not to the top. Clearly a leak somewhere. The car then sounded so bad then engine management light came on. The bottle now requires filling quite often. It's with Ford right now and they are pressure testing as well as a few other tests. They confirm there is a leak.

Anyone else have this problem? I have spoken to my local garage and they know of someone who had a 1.5 ecoboost engine in a Ford Focus and Ford changed the engine at no cost. I'm aiming to have a chat about this possibility or at the very least fix at no cost as this is clearly a known issue which had I been told about it would have led to my not buying the car in the first place.


CrimeLord

2 posts

35 months

Thursday 30th December 2021
quotequote all
This is exactly my experience. 2015 Mondeo 1.5 Ecoboost with 36k on the clock.

Two weeks after a service, engine overheated in a matter of seconds. No coolant. Replenished coolant but 3 days later, overheated.

Ford garage (Platts) has said either head gasket or cylinder head cracked. No point taking apart to check, they said. Just replace engine for £9.5k!!

Ford completely unsympathetic and claim that since there have been no recalls on the car of this type then they aren't responsible!

I loved my car, it was great. In a matter of 2 weeks, it went from being worth £10k to being utterly worthless.

It is now keeping me up at night.

I shall NEVER by Ford, again.

paqs

Original Poster:

32 posts

170 months

Thursday 30th December 2021
quotequote all
CrimeLord said:
Two weeks after a service, engine overheated in a matter of seconds. No coolant. Replenished coolant but 3 days later, overheated.
I shall NEVER by Ford, again.
Sounds a bit of a coincidence this happened shortly after a service, was it showing any signs of coolant leak before? If it lost all its coolant this sounds reminiscent of the 1.0 problem.

I would investigate how it lost the coolant and if the garage/Ford is at fault see them in court for the repair bill, these ecoboost engines all seem to have inherent cooling system issues.

My son still has his 1.5 Focus, I recently serviced it myself as I don't trust any Ford dealer to touch anything. I have NEVER come across an oil filter screwed on so tight, the idiots must have done it up with a tool! My usual chain type remover wouldn't budge it, last resort screwdriver through it wouldn't budge it, in the end I had to buy a 3 prong remover and use a breaker bar to get it off!