Ford Ka - warning lights

[Moribund]

Ever since we had the cam belt changed on our Ford Ka my wife noticed that when the car was going above 40 mph 3 lights would appear: the engine light, the stop start light and the triangular exclamation generic warning light. The garage did some diagnostics and it returned codes P0300, P0302 AND PO303 - apparently all misfires - they've replaced the coil and HT leads as well as a new battery, We picked it up last night and after reaching a higher speed the lights came on again.

I took the car out out today and drove it for an hour without any issue. After chatting with my wife she mentioned that she hardly ever uses 5th gear where as I use 5th gear all the time. Would this have anything to do with this issue - would driving with high revs cause the engine light to come on?

Thanks John

[Scrump]

How many gears does she use?

[Moribund]

She says she uses 4 95% of the time. Only when going over 60mph does she change to 5th

I find when I drive at 40mph the SHIFT sign is on telling me to change up

[Scrump]

I was just checking that she doesn’t drive everywhere in 1st gear!

[Moribund]

Ha ha fair enough. She drove a 4 gear for years and she's never quite made the adjustment

[GreenV8S]

Moribund said:

the lights came on again.

Check the codes again. If they're the same codes then the previous diagnosis was probably wrong.

Driving one gear too low won't do any favours for fuel consumption or engine life but wouldn't cause fault codes unless it's being driven up to the rev limit.

[Moribund]

GreenV8S said:

Check the codes again. If they're the same codes then the previous diagnosis was probably wrong.

Driving one gear too low won't do any favours for fuel consumption or engine life but wouldn't cause fault codes unless it's being driven up to the rev limit.

Thanks for the response. I’ve took it out twice today for an hour each time and there have been no error lights. I don’t imagine it’s fixed itself overnight so I’m puzzled.
Could the replacing of the CAM belt have caused this - it seems like all our problems began immediately after that work.

[GreenV8S]

Moribund said:

Could the replacing of the CAM belt have caused this - it seems like all our problems began immediately after that work.

Impossible to tell, until you know what the problem is. Certainly fair to ask the garage who did that work to take a look at it for you.

If the other driver sees the problem and you don't, try passengering with them while they drive as normal. These days there isn't a choke knob to hang the handbag on, but you may find there's some other unusual habit that provokes the problem.

[thecurleyone]

Get garage to perform a phonic wheel relearn procedure. This should fix it. Quite a common problem on Fiat 500 and Mark 2 Ford KA 1.2 after timing belt change.
Done using diagnostic equipment, although I believe it can be done without.

[Chris32345]

Phoinc wheel relearn needed
This tells the ECU the exact relationship between the cam and crank signal's as this can chance with a new belts



Produce is basically start car slowly rev the car to 4k 3 times in a row then turn off engine

[Moribund]

Thanks for all the replies. Sounds like I need to suggest this procedure to the garage.
Strangely we’ve been out 4 times using the 5th gear whenever the SHIFT sign appears and so far not one error. I don’t believe that cars correct themselves so I’m expecting this to reoccur at some point.

[Chris32345]

Moribund said:

Thanks for all the replies. Sounds like I need to suggest this procedure to the garage.
Strangely we’ve been out 4 times using the 5th gear whenever the SHIFT sign appears and so far not one error. I don’t believe that cars correct themselves so I’m expecting this to reoccur at some point.

It's usually occours at high rmp as that when the slight difference between the signal's is the greatest hence why changing yp early makes it less likely to occur

[Moribund]

Thanks again for the helpful comments/

Just rang my local Ford garage and explained the problem, They have never heard of phonic wheel relearn . Is this something which is fairly common or could it be known by another name? Rang 2 other garages and same thing?

Can I do this myself or does the car have to be hooked up to Ford diagnostics? From what 've read you warm the car up and then stop/restart the car to clear data.

Then rev engine to 4000 x 3 times (idling the engine in between), repeat process for 5000 and 6000 revs (doesn't make it clear if one or all 3 - if only 1, I'm guessing the 4000 as this is a low geared car ).

How long do you rev at this high rpm? (don't want to damage the engine)

Turn the engine off when finished

This is what I read on a web site so please let me know if incorrect.

Edited by Moribund on Tuesday 15th December 14:23

[GreenV8S]

Moribund said:

They have never heard of phonic wheel relearn . Is this something which is fairly common or could it be known by another name?

I'd never heard of it until this thread. It is not a common term or a common problem, and it's no surprise that people who haven't run into the problem don't recognise the term.

4000 rpm is not excessive for a modern car engine and there is no need to be concerned that you may be over revving it.

[Chris32345]

GreenV8S said:

I'd never heard of it until this thread. It is not a common term or a common problem, and it's no surprise that people who haven't run into the problem don't recognise the term.

4000 rpm is not excessive for a modern car engine and there is no need to be concerned that you may be over revving it.

It's. Common issues with Fiat's FIRE engine's that have variable valve timing when people change the timing belt

Other cars may have some sort of self learning procedure after a belt change but can't say 100%

[Moribund]

Chris32345 said:

It's. Common issues with Fiat's FIRE engine's that have variable valve timing when people change the timing belt

Other cars may have some sort of self learning procedure after a belt change but can't say 100%

Someone mentioned to me today that the Ford Ka has a Fiat engine. Is this true?

[Chris32345]

Moribund said:

Someone mentioned to me today that the Ford Ka has a Fiat engine. Is this true?

Yes the MK2 ford Ka 2010 to around 2016 I think is a rebadged fiat 500 made in Fiat's Tychy plant in Poland
It's uses the 500 body shell and fiats 1.2 8v fire engine in most of them

[Moribund]

Chris32345 said:

Yes the MK2 ford Ka 2010 to around 2016 I think is a rebadged fiat 500 made in Fiat's Tychy plant in Poland
It's uses the 500 body shell and fiats 1.2 8v fire engine in most of them

Thanks Chris

[Leewurf]

Was there ever a resolution to this. My son bought a 2011 Ka which had previously had a belt change and now has all the above symptoms. Read an awful lot about misfires starting after a cambelt change which has lead me here. Tried the procedure of revving it up 3x but no change.
Would be great if someone could post if there has been any progress and what fixes it

[Leewurf]

• *FIXED***

All the talk of phonic wheel relearn on the Fiat forums led me to taking the car to a local garage and asking them to plug it in and 'force' a relearn. Got the usual response - 'yeah we read the codes and its got a misfire so we're going to put some new coils on it' - FFS!! Managed to stop them before they racked up an unnecessary bill and steer them back onto what I actually wanted them to do. Got a fairly unconvincing summary at the end of the day of what they had done and sure enough on the next long drive the misfire reappeared.
Turns out one of my colleagues invested in an expensive diagnostic device which he was happy to lend and just out of curiosity I connected using the Fiat set-up rather than the Ford and up pops an option to 'Reset Phonic Wheel'. Followed the instructions and at the next key-on the EML is flashing with a code along the lines of 'Phonic Wheel Learn Missed'. Warmed it up, revved to over 5000rpm 3 times and after the 3rd the EML goes away!
After that I spent the day thrashing it around and my son has taken it on a couple of 100 mile+ journeys, both conditions where it had previously misfired, and no faults to report.
Feeling very smug.