Hi All

My little sister is having issues with her Fiesta and knowing the amount Ford know how on this forum I am sure someone can help!

Basicall she has a Fiesta Finesse 1.2 (injection?) on an 04 plate, and this afternoon the engine light came on the dash while she was pootling home from Tesco's. It has oil, coolant etc and has been looked after by Ford for the 3 years she has had it.

The bunch of t****rs at Ford have told her not to drive it but they can't get to her for 2 weeks - which is somewhat impractical for a young lass with a 4 month old baby that lives in March nowhere near any shops or anything

Any ideas? Any way I can get more info off the ecu rather just a fault? (I know Vauxhall you can earth a pin in the diagnostics plug and you get an error code from flashes of the engine light).

Help!

Mark

could be a whole multitude of dodgy sensors really i guess any independant garages around with a fault code reader?

if she has aa or rac tell her to make the battery flat then call aa use for home start they should start it find the fault maybe at last she will know what it is

cheap code reader of ebay ??, at least then you can find out what the fault is and decide whether its safe to drive or not !

quote:

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Originally posted by doddy
if she has aa or rac tell her to make the battery flat then call aa use for home start they should start it find the fault maybe at last she will know what it is

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I dont know if it's an issue with petrols, but when I got my tintop (diesel Seat Toledo) the engine light was on and a good thrash for half an hour cleared it.

get it checked but if it drives fine i would put money on it being the lambda sensor

if it dosnt drive well then it could be either throttle body or throttle pedal if its drive by wire

yeh the lambda sensor went on our 02 fiesta, i assume its a similar engine. worth a check if the wirings ok, ours had been sliced by the exhaust shield after years of rubbing (We think)

Cheers everyone, I will pop over tomorrow morning and have a look. I will post likely post again with what I can see to see if anyone has any further advice!

Mark

Turn the key, and the red LED near the clock will flash. After a minute or so it may start flashing the fault code, ie:
1 flash, pause, 3 flashed, pause etc.
This may help show what the problem is - Google has loads of info about the codes, but they are mostly related to the immobilizer...

Best thing though would be to get a cheapy eBay OBD reader which will let you reset the engine light too.

If the lambda sensor is shot, then it'll be ok to drive but keep an eye on the temperatures. My sensor died and it eventually made the engine run so lean that is started overheating. If this happens, disconenct the battery for 15-30 minutes to reset the ECU to standard values which should make it last a bit longer.

The other problem that happens with these is the MAF sensor. It'll be fine to drive if this is the case, but economy and performance may suffer.

Ed.

If there was an important problem I imagine she'd know by now. As long as it's not running like a sack of spanners I believe there's not much damage that can be done. Except to the wallet of course.

Have a damn good look round the engine, there's airflow sensors, crank positioning sensors, lambda sensor, abs sensor, the list can go on all day and in all likelyhood it's one of these fell out. Go over it with a fine tooth comb and see if there's any wires hanging down or sockets with nothing plugged in.

Having said that missus 106 does this when it's cold, but goes off when the car's warmed up a bit.

as above, if it sounds ok, I would (and have done) drive it, but keep an ear for any unusual (expensive sounding) noises. The engine warning light has just come on my 4 month old Sprinter because of a dodgy throttle actuator, but it's still fine to drive - just really slow!

Greg.

Hi All

Blinkin typical! Got to my sisters this morning and she had nipped to the shops to get some milk and surprise surprise the engine light had gone out! No sign of any lose connectors, damaged wires or anything like that and the engine runs sweet as a nut.


Thanks for the comments and I will be keeping an eye out for a cheap error code reader just in case!

Mark

Lol nice could have been something really simple that sorted itself.