Ford Problems

This era of Australin Fords had a bit of a habit of having their body computers go on the blink. When that happened, a whole bunch of things could start acting up, but the central locking was a prime suspect.

When a car thinks it has a door, bonnet or bootlid opened, it will often refuse to lock, preferring instead to warn the driver that the car is not secure. And when the body computer is confused, it can interpret a closed door as an open one. But before you take it to an auto electrician to be sorted, try this: Take a can of lubricating spray and apply some to the little door sensor inside the door jamb. This is the micro switch that tells the computer what’s going on, and if the switch is full of dust or jammed, that won’t happen. Sometimes freeing the switch will make the problem go away.

The other thing to try is to disconnect the car’s battery and leave it overnight before reconnecting it. Sometimes this will actually reset the body computer. It doesn’t work every time, but sometimes it will do the trick.

It’s serious inasmuch as it’s pointing to a problem with the car’s anti-lock brakes which are a critical safety system on any car. It could be caused by a faulty ABS module (which is the component that physically modulates the brake pressure to avoid the wheels locking up). But it could also be the fault of a sensor somewhere on the car. You may even find something as random as low battery voltage can trigger this sort of alert.

It could even be a simple leak in the system that has allowed the brake fluid to fall below the minimum level. So start with that and check the contents of the brake master cylinder under the bonnet. If that’s okay, a brake specialist is probably your best bet.

In the old days, the advice on this would have probably have been to have the fuel injectors cleaned. But these days, the modern diesel is a much more complex and sophisticated thing, and black smoke from the tailpipe could be any number of things to do with the fuel system.

You may find the injectors are, indeed, the problem, but you need to check the condition of the pump, filters, EGR valve and even the turbocharger and its plumbing. Something as simple as a split in the plastic turbocharger piping can lead to excess black smoke.

This version of the Ford 5.4-litre V8 is not universally admired by mechanics. It can tend to run hot, and it’s quite common for this unit to suffer from stretched timing chains, worn chain tensioners and guides. Any problem in the area of the timing chains can lead to a misfire or stumble, and it can be worse when the engine is hot and the oil pressure that powers the timing chain mechanisms starts to fall away.

The best advice is to have the car electronically scanned. This might pinpoint the problem by throwing up a fault code that a mechanic can decipher (including the camshaft timing fault we’re talking about). Don’t continue to throw new parts at the engine; that’s a great way to waste time and money and still not fix the problem.

This engine uses what’s called a wet timing belt. So, instead of the toothed, rubber belt running under a cover as most timing-belt engines do, the Ford engine runs its timing belt inside an oil-bath. The idea is that the oil will lubricate the belt, but experience has shown that sometimes, the oil can degrade the belt, causing either belt failure or contamination of the rest of the engine’s oiling system. Many mechanics regard the wet timing belt as a liability rather than an asset.

Some owners have had no bad experiences, others haven’t been so lucky. However, it’s probably worth noting that the replacement for this engine (announced recently) has reverted to a conventional timing chain in the interests of durability and reliability.