Ford Focus II (2004 - 2007) - 2004 1.6 - engine weak!

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Wed 7 May 2008 13:21
2004 1.6 - engine weak! - The Mac Guy
Problem A: Engine cold

I start my 3200-mile 1.6 04 Focus on a cold day and it sounds like it is running on only 3 cylinders, as if one is running weakly. It drags itself along the road... The colder the day the worse it behaves, and the worse it sounds. This clears up when warm and sounds and drives 'normal'. Difficult to demonstrate to a dealer as they aren't with me when I start off from cold... have left it overnight at dealer but they drive out into standing traffic, so can't pull away on a cold engine...

Problem B (may be linked)
The power of the engine is getting less and less over time. I go up the same hill, and it used to be happy in third, now it struggles in third and I change to second. And I can hear that one of the cylinders isn't right, as if something might be 'throttling' one of them. On my old Kawa 750 I would have said it had a leaky valve, causing less power on that cylinder; that's the best way to describe this.

No problems show with Ford's diagnostics. Compression test by them shows 200psi on all cylinders (though curiously another garage showed low compression 130psi on one of them, which would start to explain all this)

Why would one cylinder be weaker than the rest?

No misfiring (ie ignition) problems.

Could the ECU anti-knock feature come into play and cause the ignition to retard when it shouldn't?

I have been trying to record this sound to make it plain.

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 07/05/2008 at 13:35

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