Fault Lights the other night

Riksta · 05-12-2010, 10:14 PM

Just thought I'd post this one up, see if anyone has any ideas or similar, happened to me Friday evening when heading out to dinner - I had driven the car during the day, had it parked in my driveway for a few hours, went to head out for dinner and:

I started the car. Standard set of beeps as usual, took eyes off the dash to get iPod set up, went to take off, looked down and the screen said "Power Steering Failure", the ABS warning light was still on, the engine warning light was still on, and the handbrake warning light was still on (and would not go out even when I took the handbrake off!). The power steering was also inoperative, felt as heavy as all hell.

So I turned it off, let it sit, tried again after 5 minutes and the same thing happened. Turned the car off, dad & I popped the hood and pulled each and every fuse in turn, inspected them (all fine) and made sure they were back in secure. Started the car again, same warnings, so was going to take another car when dad clipped the fusebox lid back on and all of a sudden, power steering was working, and all warning lights were out bar the engine warning.

I drove it to dinner as it was only a few minutes from my place (I hope I haven't wrecked anything), and starting the car to bring it home after all lights went out as normal as part of the startup procedure including the engine light.

I'm a bit worried there might be something underlying which may cause it to do it again, or could it be just something was a little loose which came good when we clipped the fusebox cover back on? Or it was our first "Hot" day for the summer? Don't want power steering to die on me while I'm driving it, or halfway round a corner! The car seems to be functioning fine again now, no issues whatsoever, but just the fact I had a christmas tree of warning lights lit up is niggling away at the back of my mind.....

By the way, the car has just under 102xxx km's on it and not due for a service until 110xxx.

Sorry for the long read, but I find it better to be as descriptive as I can so people can answer!

Skid Marx · 12-12-2010, 12:27 AM

I don't know if the 2005 LS Focus Zetec Manual is different from a 2010 LV Focus XR5 in respect of the power steering fail-safe set up, but my owners manual warns that after a power steering failure you can only start the engine up to 5 times or 56 hours after the failure. Of course, your problem seemed to go away by itself so maybe that subroutine reset itself.

I agree with you that these intermittent faults can ruin your confidence in driving any great distance. I know from having an ABS speed sensor pack up a few weeks ago that this can trigger several unrelated warning lights. Mine even told me the engine had failed at one stage while it was still purring like a kitten.

Riksta · 24-12-2010, 08:06 PM

Sorry to bump like this but it is definitely relevant.

Jumped in the car to head home from work tonight, and exactly the same thing happened. This time, I called the RAA out to have a look for me to see if they could recommend anything or fix it (because at 5:30pm Christmas Eve, if it can't be fixed there and then you know it ain't getting done for a few days!).

Turns out the main earth wire was loose as, well, insert inappropriate joke here. He tightened it all up so it was making contact again, got me to start the car, and whammo, all is good again.

So yeah, check your earth wire if this happens to you

Riksta · 30-12-2010, 08:45 PM

This happened AGAIN to me tonight! :(

Called the RAA again (as have not had a chance to get the car looked at) and this time he took the earth wire off, rubbed back a bit of the paint on where it connects, and reconnected and it worked.

Kind of disenchanted, only seems to happen if the car's been sitting in the heat for a while (like all day while I'm working). Going to definitely be taking the car in tomorrow to have it looked at, hopefully there will be an error code or two still there to be read by the machine.

On a downside, I now need a radio code too, as I tried resetting it by disconnecting the battery.

Anybody else have anything like this?

marg99 · 30-12-2010, 09:26 PM

I had earth problems with the cars computer at least I think it was the body computer as the engine ran fine but cruise and air and speedo failed to work. Got a code that the dealer said was "Communication failure". They cleaned wiring loom connnectors, it happened again and then they redid the earth strap for the computer and worked like a dream since.