Ford Fiesta - EAC FAIL on 2004 1.4tdci Fiesta

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Fri 9 May 2014 20:52
Ford Fiesta - EAC FAIL on 2004 1.4tdci Fiesta - tired-boy

40 days ago i was cruising along and felt a brief loss of power a few times. Over the next few miles heading home it got worse, was flashing EAC FAIL on the dash and i struggled to get the speed up on the 60mph A road.

I limped into the village garage who changed the fuel filter - no joy. I took it into town to get it on to a machine to observe live data. They told me they were getting low pressure from the pump and that it needed replacing - perhaps the injectors too. So, i got a 2nd hand pump, had it fitted elsewhere, new timing belt, new starter motor as that packed up too - no joy, exact same problem (having thought it had been resolved though, the mechanic took it in for its MOT which it sailed through). It then went to another garage to be put on the machine. He then said air flow meter was coming up and throttle position sensor was worth looking at. So, its had a new pedal because that has sensors in it, and its had another air flow meter (MAF Sensor) - no joy, excatly the same! I've disconnected several connections and used contact cleaner - no joy. The mechanic is now scratching his head. All of this has taken over 6 weeks.

It starts up first time no bother at all. The revs are fine when idling, no jumping around, nothing erratic with the revs. There is no pattern to it losing the power, it just does it when i try to accelerate too quickly. It then flashes EAC FAIL on the dash, i come off the power and it stops flashing it, and i could then accelerate IF i do it gingerly - anything heavy footed and there's no power and its off flashing the dreaded words at me again. It NEVER cuts out requiring restarting. The engine management light does not come on at all.

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Sat 10 May 2014 13:52
Ford Fiesta - EAC FAIL on 2004 1.4tdci Fiesta - MrEckerslikefromRamsbottom

This is strange... You say it's a Tdci, but EAC refers to the throttle body on petrol models.

The best answer I can find is this one..

uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2010020512...z

And this one..

www.bba-reman.com/content.aspx?content=ford_fiesta...s

Edited by MrEckerslikefromRamsbottom on 10/05/2014 at 13:53

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Sun 11 May 2014 10:10
Ford Fiesta - EAC FAIL on 2004 1.4tdci Fiesta - tired-boy

EAC refers to the Electronic Accelerator Control and could be any number of things from Pedal, through sensors, to ECU

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Wed 14 May 2014 18:15
Ford Fiesta - EAC FAIL on 2004 1.4tdci Fiesta - tired-boy

Well, i changed that pedal as i said, took it for a run. no joy. The next day i changed the air flow meter and took it for a run, no joy. The next day i changed the air filter (becuase it just needed it anyway). Took it into the garage to go on the machine again and it was just the same as its ever been. He then left it on the machine all night and said it wasnt come up with anything. He then took it on a run and it was absolutely fine. I have just driven 20 miles home and its been absolutely fine. Nobody did anything. It could just come back the next time i go out and we could be back to square one but at the moment its back to normal. Some have said that it can take time for the ECU to 're-learn' anything new put onto it. Is there any truth in that at all? Maybe the parts i replaced did the job and it took the ECU a day or two, or a few miles to 'get with the program'. That doesnt make any sense to me personally but........

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Tue 23 Sep 2014 15:01
Ford Fiesta - EAC FAIL on 2004 1.4tdci Fiesta - Alex1954

Just in case this helps someone else with this 1.4 TDCi engine .........................

Having suffered almost a year of random "EAC Fail" messages, and the car dropping into limp home mode (in spite of various diagnostics done and parts changed!) I managed to find a guy who is red hot with diagnostics who agreed to sort it once and for all!

The car was by now, misfiring, giving the impression of a faulty injector or glow plug. These were all removed for checking and pronounced OK. Fuel lines were checked, sensors, compression, electrical wiring were all checked and pronounced ok too.

Having checked all of the above, and I had already checked or replaced the cheap or simple things beforehand, he decided that the fault MUST be in the ECU, which is strangely placed in a position of weather abuse right in front of the battery, immediately behind the front grille!

I managed to buy a second hand unit with the right part numbers on it, which he then fitted and coded to the car using Ford IDS software. The car is now fixed and has run faultlessly ever since.

Fault code diagnosis DID NOT show this to be faulty, but pointed to all sorts of other things which turned out to be OK, so this is never going to be an easy and cheap fix for anyone. It was only my guys' determination not to be beaten, that showed up the fault, whereas none of the previous garages had shown any interest in getting to to bottom of it at all.

Good luck to anyone with this problem!

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Thu 5 Mar 2020 00:36
Ford Fiesta - EAC FAIL on 2004 1.4tdci Fiesta - baitman

The wifes 2004 fiesta 1.4 tdci was showing eac fail and in limp mode.
i was reluctant to start chucking money at it and replace every part as many others have so i did a bit of reading on forums.
the front lower engine mounting was also wrecked so the assumption was the engine movement had damaged wiring, so hopefully a cheaper fix.
the garage was reluctant but we agreed to start with the engine mount. I spoke with the mechanic and told him my thoughts, and when i went back later the mount was done and he had found a broken wire were the crankcase had rubbed and broke the wire.
he had just out the car back on the computer and it still showed the eac fail on the dash.
one of the faults showed as fuel rail connection, so he followed the wires and found another broken wire behind the air filter box.
this was repaired and on restart the eac fail no longer showed and the car revved and drove perfectly.

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