Help!! Mondeo snags - flywheel & engine cut-out

[Greg11]

I’ve got a 53 plate Mondeo TDCI and recently suffered the Dual mass Flywheel problem at 104K miles. First sign was the starter motor whining and not starting properly. A garage close to my work just cleaned out the motor as it was a Friday but explained the real cause was but said should be OK for a few weeks until the motor got stuffed again but there was no risk of a catastrophic failure and the vehicle was safe to drive. Anyway, having taken in the blow of a quote for £1100 to fit a solid flywheel with clutch, new motor, slave I was fairly relaxed to get better quote which I did for £870 so booked it in at another garage a friend recommended. Then (despite what the first garage said) the car suddenly started dying on me completely (but would restart OK and run for a while) – fortunately I wasn’t far from the garage I’d arranged to do the work so took it there and waited a few days for them to do the job.

Now – having done the full job (they put in a solid mass flywheel conversion) and fitted a new Crankshaft sensor - when they take it for a test run it cuts out without warning, apparently it seems when not under load, so just cruising it will completely die “as if you’ve turned the engine off”. The nightmare is that no codes show up on their diagnostics!!! Nooooo!!!! So they are baffled – have checked all wiring and spoke to Ford who also don’t understand it and say they’ve done all the right things.

I’ve read various horrific threads of people with similar problems of Mondeo TDCI’s suddenly cutting out and the problems of finding the cause at huge expense. Am I just plain unlucky and a quite separate fault has occurred or is it in some way related to the flywheel issue? Frankly I’m gutted that I’ve spent the best part of a grand and still have an unusable vehicle and the prospect of being forced to hand it over to a Ford dealer to randomly replace parts at huge expense. Maybe I should just cut my losses and give up – but then it won’t even rate as a trade in possibility and I need something for work (a round trip of 90 miles)? Any suggestions?

[Pumaracing]

You say the car started dying on you before the old flywheel was replaced. The only conceivable impact of the flywheel on running once the car has started is the crank sensor timing information. I can't see how a dual mass flywheel failing internally would affect this in any way because the timing teeth are on the primary flywheel half which bolts solidly to the crank. The wobbly bits and clutch friction face are what attach to this so they can move all over the place and not affect the crank sensor. You therefore had a secondary problem which had already started to manifest and is possibly totally unrelated.

BTW, I also don't see how the starter motor whining was any sign that the DMF was failing because again the starter ring gear is on the primary side of the flywheel and that's solid to the crank. Maybe all you had was a dodgy starter motor plus the cutting out fault and the DMF was fine. When a DMF fails you get loads of vibration or a jerky clutch engagement but it should still start and run fine - unless I'm missing something obvious.

Personally I'd never buy any car with a DMF which I firmly believe to be the work of the Devil himself. Any component that's so expensive and pretty much guaranteed to fail eventually should be consigned to history. You can of course rebuild them if you have the equipment and knowledge. It's only two slabs of metal with some springs and other crap between them. You can take them apart and reface the clutch side easily enough.

Edited by Pumaracing on Thursday 13th August 20:32

[Greg11]

Thanks for the reply Puma. I'm no expert (far from it - but unfortunately I soon will be)- but from many sources now I've learnt that the starter moter snag is a classic symptom of the DMF failing. Apparently, the debris from the disintegrating flywheel ends up in the motor attracted by its magnets until it stops it working. When they took the motor off apparently it was full of swarth so the DMF was definitely on the way out. Similarly the crank sensor can get stuffed but I've not found another theory about anything else - so your point it must be a secondary problem may be right.

It just doesn't feel right though - the odds of two things happening simultaneously must be very small. Maybe they just haven't done it right or the ECU doesn't like the solid flywheel somehow - although they are apparently widely fitted and run perfectly well. Hey-Ho - it's currently with another garage now with different sort of diagnostic equipment but I'm not holding my breath they'll reach any conclusions. Bugger!

[Pumaracing]

If the solid flywheel had the timing teeth in the wrong positions or some other specific mechanical fault the engine would most likely not start at all or start but run badly all the time. To start and run ok for a while but then cut out sporadically is probably a bad connection somewhere in the wiring loom or within a sensor. In other words you can't have a specific physical unvarying mechanical fault like an incorrectly machined component that only manifests sometimes.

Coinkidinks do happen I'm afraid and if as you say this cutting out thing is a known problem with this model I'd concentrate your researches on why that is if there's a common cause. Intermittent faults can be a right swine to track down though.

I see your point about the swarf in the starter motor but I'd still expect a failing DMF to manifest other symptoms like at idle or upon clutch engagement. You should ask for the old one back to have a look. BTW no one ever seems to remember this but the old components a garage changes are still always the car owner's property and should be returned if requested. Sometimes this stops the swines charging you for things they never actually replaced.

[fatjon]

if they didn't clean all the swarf out well the new crank sensor will have loads of it stuck to the end of it as it's magnetic. This causes the signal to drop out at low RPM, worth pulling it out and checking.

[Belly954]

Hello the garage should be able to check the crankshaft signal with an oscilloscope to check the correct signal when it hopefully cuts out for them,I know it may not be connected but I would also scope the camshaft sensor as I have had these fail and not always leave a fault code in the ecu good luck

[Greg11]

Latest instalment - the garage (who were genuinely helpful) passed the vehicle on to another that had better diagnostics and someone they described as a “computer wizard”. He eventually got some sort of reading and is “90% sure” it’s the fuel pump that needs replacing now. Quoted cost including labour & VAT £807 – so the combined total is now over £1700. I’m just hoping he’s right otherwise I’ll have shelled out that much and still not have a working car – but I guess it’s worth another £800 quid on 90% shot (isn’t it ???). At least they’ve let me hold on to the ‘courtesy car’ for the last fortnight they’ve now taken to get this far. Fingers crossed!

[C. Grimsley]

Worked on plenty of these mondeos and to say they are a pain is an under statement, i find nine times out of ten the running faults with these lumps are the communication with the injectors and the ecu.

The dual mass is another common problem, the starters whine due to when the dual mass fails the shards of metal and grime get into the starter as this is just a big magnet and sucks them in.

Have done plenty of repairs to them and even some i have done have gone wrong, the Ford dealers around here struggle with them too.

Harsh but i do hope you get to the problem without too much hammering to your wallet.

Carl