Straight to the point :) ... my 04 1.8 petrol focus speedo needle decided to drop to zero whilst driving about 5 days ago. It bounced back to life in about 20 seconds.
I gave my local ford dealer a call and was told it was most likely the cluster as there is a known fault on them and they will change it and recoded a new one for £99! shocked but after a look in to this apparently they got wrapped on watchdog and offer it at this price as its there fault really, which they have had to hold their hands up for. I spoke to a tech guy at the dealer he said if nothing else on the dial went wet dead no warning lights came on then its probably the speed sensor which costs £180 inc. all to change. According to him this can cause the cars electrics to stop dead, very dangerous.
He said it could have been caused by a splash of a puddle with the heavy rain and would just wait and watch it before committing to work. So first thing to do would be wd-40 it and valaseling the electric connections and see how it goes. I haven't done that yet due to the continued rain. So far it has not returned and has been driving fine since.
I'm wondering what to do, the only thing bothering me is the possibility of the car stopping dead so considering just doing it on that basis or keep and eye on it and see if it does it again.
I have noticed there is no splash guard on the focus ? I guess if it was cause by a puddle a guard would have prevented this. Maybe there is one sold for the focus, o r I could craft one up.
Looks a simple enough jobm famous last words. Only issue with the speed sensor I can see is the pin being seized, don;t fancy snapping half of it in place lol. That said £180 is a lot of money.
Just after a bit of advice really.
Cheers