My 115k Mondeo has recently started to behave oddly, on just three occasions now, 6 weeks apart in total, it has 'missed', 'coughed' and stalled - tank was nearly full of diesel and NO lights came up on dashboard - although difficult to restart, it did every time and off we went!
Took it to my Ford Garage for a major service after the first 'event' and they found nothing out of the ordinary, so we carried on using it - now happened again and after leaving it with
the same garage, they have 'diagnosed' the fault as the Fuel Pump, which they say needs replacing, at a total cost of .....................................£1400 !!!!!!!!!! Yes you read it correctly!
Not being particularly wealthy, I have now done 2 things (A) looked around on the internet and spoken to Diesel specialists and (B) put a number of questions to the dealer in an email.
They seem a little reluctant to respond and confirm that IF I spent all this money, it would absolutely 100% cure the problem :-)
In addition, they have also gone a bit 'fuzzy' over my questioning around whether they have actually read the ECU on the Fuel Pump itself, which I am told is very important!
The other information I want to share with the forum, is that they claim that so far, they have spent THREE AND A HALF HOURS diagnosing and test driving the vehicle and the bill so far stands at just under £300 - BEFORE they do any work - is this a rip off or what AND as stated, they don't seem keen to offer me a guarantee that it will fix the problem!!
Anyone out there with a view - or more experience with stuff like this....?
I have to say the car has been great until now, but if I had known that to fix a fuel pump would cost £1400 - I would NEVER have bought it - guess there's a whole bunch of new questions to ask in future :-))
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 28/10/2007 at 13:47
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sb
There's never a reason to say that the "fuel pump" has failed; a specific component within it should be shown to be at fault, which should be the minimum basis of a proper diagnosis.
Blithely saying "It's the pump" suggests guesswork [accurate - or not] and, inevitably, the risk of incorrect diagnosis and wasted money.
Is it the pump itself; say a position sensor clogged with metal debris, or the pump control unit suffering with solder fatigue? It must be possible to, at least, get that far?
What did the diesel specialists say?
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Thanks for the response 'Screwloose' - rather like you, the 2 diesel specialists I've spoken to suggest that it is essential to read the ECU on the pump first to establish that it IS the Pump and secondly, there is apparently another 'feeder' pump underneath, which is often the cause of the such problems and can easily be checked to see if it's under pressure - and if faulty, is easier to replace and cheaper!!
That's before we talk about sensors and split pipes letting in air - all of which I'd like to think had been carefully checked and eliminated first!!
My concern at the moment is to get as much information as I can from the Garage, so that when I take the car from them, I have something a little more tangible to show for my money (nearly £300 so far in diagnostic time!!!!), OR I get them to 'admit' to a different story OR that they have done a crap job so far and it really isn't worth the money they are trying to charge me...
One thing that puzzles me is why the car ran perfectly ok in between these 'events' - for a couple of weeks, before doing it again...??
I just hope there's a 10p wire loose somewhere, which causes an intermittent fault - it's a better image than an invoice for £1400 :-(
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I can't comment on the Mondeo specifically but there's so many possibilities here that you really do need someone who has a clue about what they're doing. My SEAT Ibiza recently developed symptoms similar to yours (see my thread on the subject) and it was eventually tracked down to a faulty relay. Your Ford dealer will in all likelihood merrily continue to replace major components without any sound basis for believing that their actions will solve the problem.
Can you get the Ford dealer to remove the pump so you can take it to a specialist rather than coughing up £300 to get the whole car and being no further forward? The place that sorted my Ibiza took a delivery of a fuel pump for testing when I was there yesterday, from the banter between the deliverer and the recipient, this was a fairly frequent occurrence.
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Soupytwist !
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Eureka ?
This sounds exactly same problem I had for months on my 1.8 Focus TDCI 03 plate
Always told it was a fuel delivery issue, and I paid 2K bills for new fuel pump system, new PCM etc
And at the end of the day it was a chaffed lead under the gearbox that was a lead in the fuel electrics set up. This gave an intermittent problem
If it will not start just try starting it with the gear lever in (say) 4th gear and see if it goes cos thats exactly how my dealer cracked the issue I had by a (happy) accident.
Your problem sounds so like the one I had, worth checking this out.
Incidentally I am pursuing Ford for re-inbusrment
Just hope my thoughts save you the 6 months of a nightmare I had.
PS dont expect the Ford Customer Relations Centre th assist you - its just an agency contracted by Ford and all its worried about is hitting its internal targets on quick answers and once you have a long duration problem they just pester you to close down your complaint.
OLD LAG
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