Ford Ecoboost Engine Failure (TWICE)

[Rat_Fink_67]

Great article on the EcoBoost in this month's Classic Ford. It's taken a lot of work (understandably!) but a tuning company has extracted over 300bhp out of one!
I'm a Ford tech so I see the good and bad where they're concerned. A lot of the catastrophic failures I've seen have been down to customers continuing to drive them with the heaters blowing cold and the coolant temperature warning on, sometimes for a few days until they go pop. Unfortunately the modern way has become for the majority of people to not look under the bonnet and keep a regular eye on their fluid levels.

[s m]

Rat_Fink_67 said:

I'm a Ford tech so I see the good and bad where they're concerned. A lot of the catastrophic failures I've seen have been down to customers continuing to drive them with the heaters blowing cold and the coolant temperature warning on, sometimes for a few days until they go pop. Unfortunately the modern way has become for the majority of people to not look under the bonnet and keep a regular eye on their fluid levels.

[Arnold Cunningham]

Well - not quite. The oil supply requirements of a turbo for lube are tiny. It's actually to allow the turbo to cool down a little, not spool down.

But these days, with water cooled bearings and after run pumps that circulate coolant through the turbo after shutdown, it is less of an issue. Still good practice though.

iSore said:

It's not that. You need to let a hot engine idle for 10-20 seconds to allow the turbo to spool down. Otherwise, the turbo is still spinning at 3000000 rpm and suddenly, there's no oil supply. That's what buggers them. I always make the last mile of a journey nice and easy anyway, but mechanical sympathy is increasingly a thing of the past.

[naknik]

I seem to have been another victim of the 1.0 ecoboost engine (13 plate 35000 miles). I was driving back on the M25 on Thursday evening and pulling away from road works when everything went off, alarms, flashing lights and lots of light coloured smoke. I pulled to the hard shoulder where the AA soon joined me, and told me the head gasket had gone. I had no warning whatsoever. Can someone advise me on what to do next as there seems to a lot of these 13 plates going pop.

Will ford fix this free of charge?
If not, do I have any recourse with the ford dealership, purchased Aug 2104?

Any other advice would be much appreciated

[LeoZwalf]

naknik said:

I seem to have been another victim of the 1.0 ecoboost engine (13 plate 35000 miles). I was driving back on the M25 on Thursday evening and pulling away from road works when everything went off, alarms, flashing lights and lots of light coloured smoke. I pulled to the hard shoulder where the AA soon joined me, and told me the head gasket had gone. I had no warning whatsoever. Can someone advise me on what to do next as there seems to a lot of these 13 plates going pop.

Will ford fix this free of charge?
If not, do I have any recourse with the ford dealership, purchased Aug 2104?

Any other advice would be much appreciated

When were the fluids last checked?

[naknik]

LeoZwalf said:

When were the fluids last checked?

They were topped up in November, It also had a full service March 2016 (although non ford)

[cyclebetter]

2011 Ecoboost 1L Focus - I have just been told I need a new engine due to the same issues you've all been talking about. The engine was losing power, and the heater wasn't working (I now see from your comments that this was a vital clue) and luckily I got off motorway and pulled over when the engine warning light came on. The coolant had all been used up - it was topped up and used 2.5 litres in a 300m drive to friends house. Now wondering who to approach. I've been told the problem is there is a warping that happens the engine cannot be skimmed and if I have a new engine the same thing is quite likely to happen again. I will call Ford and see what they say - I bought it from Evans Halshaw in October 2013 and wonder if they knew. I've tried to search for a recall if there is one, would it only apply to particular years/plates??.... Any ideas gratefully received. thanks Kate, useless car owner.

[gweaver]

Kate, according to the Honest John website, Ford issued a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) for replacement of the coolant pipe on 12-5-2015. See http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/ford/focus-20...
& http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/user-article/111213/fo... for more information.

If it is the coolant pipe that failed, and you had the car serviced at a Ford main dealer after 12-5-2015, and they didn't replace the pipe, then you may have some kind of recourse against the dealer, or at least be in with a chance of a goodwill gesture towards a repair from Ford or the dealer. Otherwise you're probably out of luck.

Assuming Ford don't offer a very significant goodwill gesture, you'd be looking at around £4700 for a new engine. If I were in your situation I'd take a chance on a second hand engine (there are a few on eBay around the £1000 mark). You'd need a good independent garage to fit it (and the new specification pipe). There may even be one that specialises in replacing 1.0l Ecoboost engines..
Then I would consider replacing the car with something with a less fragile engine.

If it's any consolation, these engines to seem to be reduced to scrap very quickly once they've started to lose coolant, and it's easy to miss the early signs of coolant loss.

Hope you get it sorted without too much pain.

[jamoor]

iSore said:

That's crap. Decent dampers (Boge, Sachs, Bilstein) should do well over 100k. The shocks on my 118d have done 205'000 and one rear is leaking.

Mind you, you have to expect that kind of thing from Ford crap. 80k and leaking shocks, 2/3 engines and nonsense like that. I'm surprised anyone buys ste like this these days with Japanese/Korean competitors.

Dont these sort of things lose performance over time rather than just stop working?

[df76]

gweaver said:

If I were in your situation I'd take a chance on a second hand engine (there are a few on eBay around the £1000 mark). You'd need a good independent garage to fit it (and the new specification pipe). There may even be one that specialises in replacing 1.0l Ecoboost engines..

Engines on eBay start at £500. Installed right and with the correct hoses, that should be no problem in the longer term.

[df76]

cyclebetter said:

2011 Ecoboost 1L Focus

Are you sure that you have the right engine?? The production of the 1.0 ecoboost didn't start until April 2012...

[Bezza48]

jamoor said:

iSore said:

That's crap. Decent dampers (Boge, Sachs, Bilstein) should do well over 100k. The shocks on my 118d have done 205'000 and one rear is leaking.

Mind you, you have to expect that kind of thing from Ford crap. 80k and leaking shocks, 2/3 engines and nonsense like that. I'm surprised anyone buys ste like this these days with Japanese/Korean competitors.

Dont these sort of things lose performance over time rather than just stop working?

..and of course the BMW N47 engine has never failed has it ? Oh wait....

I get a bit fed up with Ford bashing comments like this. The last manufacturers reliability table I saw had Ford in the top 10, well ahead of Aud, VW, BMW and Merc who all languished below half way in the table....but hey, lets carry on peddling the myth that all Fords are built like cardboard boxes.

With shock absorbers a lot of it depends on how and where the car is driven. My mate's Mondeo gave up last year on 166,000 miles and was on original shocks....just the rear bushes tend to go on those. Obviously a car driven mostly on our shocking urban roads could get through a set of shocks a lot quicker.

[PhillipM]

jamoor said:

Dont these sort of things lose performance over time rather than just stop working?

Yes, just because they aren't leaking doesn't mean they're not shot. Actually, I saw a 1 series the other day with the rear damper so obviously shot that the rear wheel was jumping clear of the road every time it went over a bump!

In fact, since he's driving around with one leaking, it wasn't you was it?

[gweaver]

cyclebetter said:

I've been told the problem is there is a warping that happens the engine cannot be skimmed and if I have a new engine the same thing is quite likely to happen again.

It's likely that the cylinder head is too far gone to skim. I wouldn't expect a replacement engine to fail though, and I wouldn't trust whoever told you this to do a decent job - run away!

df76 said:

Engines on eBay start at £500. Installed right and with the correct hoses, that should be no problem in the longer term.

I'd agree with this, provided the supplied engine is good and is fitted by a good mechanic.

[Mr2Mike]

jamoor said:

Dont these sort of things lose performance over time rather than just stop working?

They can do either. All dampers gradually lose performance through age through internal wear and the oil losing viscosity, but if they start leaking due to e.g. a damaged piston rod they can stop damping quite quickly.

[df76]

Bezza48 said:

I get a bit fed up with Ford bashing comments like this. The last manufacturers reliability table I saw had Ford in the top 10, well ahead of Aud, VW, BMW and Merc who all languished below half way in the table....but hey, lets carry on peddling the myth that all Fords are built like cardboard boxes.

I agree. The Fiesta actually compares very well with much more expensive kit. I guess some folk are just p1ssed that they've spent a premium on a worse product. Also, there's a general distrust of something slightly different, like the 1.0 ecoboost (even though it's existed for five years now). The new ST gets launched tomorrow and that's expected to have a 1.5 three cylinder - wait for the general panic!

[iSore]

df76 said:

I guess some folk are just p1ssed that they've spent a premium on a worse product.

Not me. My M47 120d was £1800.

Wouldn't touch an N47 for obvious reasons.

Ford stuff isn't all bad, the last Mondeo was a pretty good car.

[naknik]

cyclebetter said:

2011 Ecoboost 1L Focus - I have just been told I need a new engine due to the same issues you've all been talking about. The engine was losing power, and the heater wasn't working (I now see from your comments that this was a vital clue) and luckily I got off motorway and pulled over when the engine warning light came on. The coolant had all been used up - it was topped up and used 2.5 litres in a 300m drive to friends house. Now wondering who to approach. I've been told the problem is there is a warping that happens the engine cannot be skimmed and if I have a new engine the same thing is quite likely to happen again. I will call Ford and see what they say - I bought it from Evans Halshaw in October 2013 and wonder if they knew. I've tried to search for a recall if there is one, would it only apply to particular years/plates??.... Any ideas gratefully received. thanks Kate, useless car owner.

Kate there is a group on a popular social media site that has loads of advice about dealing with this issue

[TickersPlaysPop]

The group name is...


Ford Focus EcoBoost 1.0L Turbo Zetec Faulty Coolant Pipe Engine Head Gasket

[paul0303]

Thought I would post the following to help anyone else who decides to install the auxiliary electric water pump to help cool the turbo on Ecoboost 1.0 engined cars. In Case your car doesn't have one already.

I recently bought a 62 plate early 2013 Focus 1.0 ecoboost 123 ps car with a blown engine. I have replaced the engine with a December 2014 dated engine.
As the replacement engine had the 2 rubber hoses for the auxiliary electric water pump I decided to fit one to the car. I looked at a later car fitted with the extra pump, to find out where the pump was connected into the loom. I noticed my car had the correct connector on the loom behind the radiator cowling for for powering the pump.

The image below shows the connection point for the pump loom and blanking cap which was removed from the connector.|https://thumbsnap.com/BCbDtEzC[/url]

I bought the pump loom from the local Ford dealer which cost around £12. The pump came from ebay as Ford wanted around £120. Search on ebay for engine water pump 1763048


Couldn't source a used one from a breaker.

Wiring loom for pump on Ford parts diagram.



The fixing point for the pump on the fan cowling is on the lower off side of the radiator.


Pipe with heat shield on original engine (from engine block to turbo) which was replaced on later engines with two separate pipes and electric pump.

Edited by paul0303 on Saturday 6th May 16:43

Edited by paul0303 on Saturday 6th May 16:45