Mondeo TDCi Starting Problem

Just started the car ok and drove it 1/4 mile down the road, popped into a shop and it won't start returning after 10 mins.

On switch on all dash lights ok, glow plug light extinguishes. On cranking, turns over fine, all lights go out but flashing glow plug light starts after a few seconds.

Is it likely to be glow plugs or wiring/fuses?

Its a 2003 model with 90k on the clog and has been running fine.

Cheers,

Mark

I have just had one in with the same misfiring symptoms he describes below, I also know of at least two others, one had a faulty injector.: The flashing glow plug light indicates faults and is a regular fault, read the following:

"I am the not-so proud-driver of a three-month-old Mondeo Ghia TDCI. This car > has serious problems. The main problem is starting, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. If the car fails to start the glow plug light flashes to indicate a fault. There are no descriptions of a "flashing glow plug light" in the manual. On various occasions it has taken five minutes before the car will eventually start. The second problem is misfiring. This happens at about 2000-2250rpm. I can repeat this misfire at any time by performing the following procedure: drive the vehicle down a slight gradient in 4th gear at

2250revs, release the throttle pedal fully and then re-apply gently. At first there is no response from the throttle movement as the car is travelling under its own momentum until all of a sudden the fuel starts to be injected and the car starts to jerk and misfire. The car is leased through a reputable firm so I gave them a call to get it looked at. The first two Ford dealers I was sent to wanted nothing to do with it and advised me to take it to a main dealer (why does Ford have dealers that can't fix cars?) I asked the workshop foreman what he thought the problem was and he replied "10 days work and we haven't got the tools to do it". After some persuasion he showed me the Ford technical service bulletin (TSB 63/02) which details the repair in full. The whole fuel system must be replaced on the car, fuel tank, fuel pump, injectors, common-rail...etc..etc.. I took the car to a main dealer and left it with them for 4 days. All they did was reprogram the ECU! Totally unacceptable! The lease company have contacted Ford and rejected the car as not being fit for its purpose. I could go on for ever with the problems but I cant be bothered now the car is going. The only thing you will hear is your heartbeat. I don't think so! Try doing the simple test yourself and see what happens, but beware - you might find that Ford dealers aren't competent enough to fix it if you find a problem. Hope this doesn't put anyone off buying one. PS: The oil consumption is astonishing - one litre every 5000 miles.

Direct injection diesels don't rely on glow plugs as much as the older indirect injection engines did. I'd be surprised if a glow plug problem alone caused starting difficulties at this time of year.

My Indirect injection has been spitting the dummy on starting without glow plugs for the past couple of days.

So much so I will be replacing the duff plugs tomorrow.

TOm

Perhaps I should have added, "...for a DI," at the end. AFAIK all common rail engines such as TDCi are DI. IME with a Rover 420 (DI but not CR) it starts fine without waiting for them unless it's near freezing. In fact it seems to start more easily if I *don't* wait for the light to go off for some reason.

IDIs do need glow plugs most of the time. They lose more heat into the head because of the precombustion chamber.

On the new mondeos, the glowplug light is used as a warning of an "ECU Problem", and that the car's being put into Limp Home Mode.

Glow plugs are only used (IIRC) at something like below -20 degrees C on the TDCI.

Pete.

"mrcheerful ." wrote in message news:Pqs4g.60998$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...

Good old Fords!

I've done a few injectors, but none recently. They usually only result in poor starting, misfire and a fault code.

That is quite an old TSB, and the original cause of it was sorted long ago, but the same fault could still re-occur after a period of time.

As for dealers being inept, I had to sort out one of their balls ups a couple weeks ago -

Fiesta 1.4tdci van was recovered to a ford dealer, where they looked at it, pulling various parts of. In the mean time, they billed our company for repairing and servicing it. Two weeks later, the driver complains to our company as to why he's not got his van back, and my boss chases it up, discovering that we thought the driver had got his van back since we had been billed for it. After much excuse making/mumbling from the dealer, our company raised an official complaint with Ford UK, who come back telling us that the dealer is looking at the vehicle. After a couple days of no action, we decide to recover the vehicle to our own workshop. Now as I always seem to get these pain up the arse jobs, I got a nice welcome back from being on holiday. The only bit of info that the dealer told us was, the van had a major electrical fault, so after spending a day checking fault codes, various sensors, rebuilding bits, swapping bits with another van, checking for fuel etc... there was still no obvious faults, or any sign of life. And I was getting pissed off with the hourly phone calls from managers/Ford wondering what was wrong with it. The next day, I started from scratch, and it was trying to start, but was puffing back out the inlet manifold. Compression test showed up fine (you want to try finding someone with a 8mm glow plug adapter for a diesel compression tester!), which confused everybody, until I had one of those thoughts while doing a different job, that a blocked exhaust would cause those symptoms. And true enough, the turbo shaft had somehow snapped, and both parts turbines were siezed.

I'll admit I should of ignored what other people had said, but any reasonable technician should of realised the stored fault codes should of only been looked into if the engine was totally dead to the world, which it obviously wasn't when it was recovered to the dealer, going by the fact it was trying to start once I'd rebuilt it. And if I'd seen it before having had one breakdown guy, and one dealer playing with it, I would of ignored the fault codes.

Anyway, one warranty claim for a turbo, and a day's labour was submitted to ford, and by the looks of things we'll be getting paid for it, while the dealer won't be getting paid for anything, and instead has been knocked off our supplier list, and is having to do an awful lot of explaining to Ford UK. Especially regarding the billing of work that hadn't been completed (nope they hadn't even done the service, despite having billed us for it!)

*** Posted via a free Usenet account from ***

That's an additional function of the light. It is still used as normal glow plug light prior to start up.

The glow plugs are used well above that temperature. From memory, it's until the cooling system reaches 60deg, 2 minutes engine running below a set speed, or 20 seconds above the set speed. They are used to help to improve emmisions as the engine warms up, hence why if they go faulty they'll flag up a engine fault code on most* modern engines, despite the fact they're not really needed to start the engine.

*I use most, as on fords they very rarely do, but then fords very rarely register a fault until the car is actually grinding to a halt. *** Posted via a free Usenet account from ***

Something Essex cars have in common with Essex girls then ;-).

Spot the deliberate omission there on my part!

That's interesting, because I've never been conscious of having to "wait" for the glowplug light, so I've assumed (along with information I've been given from others) that they've never actually been used in anger.

Pete.

Thanks to all those who replied.

I haven't cured the fault but the car is running again. After an hour = parked up it started and has run from cold and from hot several times = since with no sign of the flashing glow plug warning light! Of course = now I'm panicking that it's an internittent fault that will reinstate = itself in the most awkward of ways!

I assume the ECU will store a fault code? Whats the chepaest way of = reading it?

Mark