Ford Problems

This could be caused by something inside the engine bay rattling or vibrating, but could also be linked to the exhaust system or its heat-shielding doing the same thing. When you hit the accelerator up a hill, the engine and driveline (and exhaust) are suddenly put under a lot of stress which can be passed along any mechanical link or fixture, making things flex or vibrate that don’t normally do so when they aren’t subjected to the same stresses and loads.

When the engine is cold, have a feel around the engine bay to find anything loose or poorly mounted that could contribute to such vibrations. It could be as simple as a poorly located clamp of a loose piece of trunking or internal panelling vibrating against another part. Often these noises will be conveyed into the cabin via the fresh air vents, making them sound even louder.

Just be sure not to confuse a rattle with the normal cacophony of noises a modern turbo-diesel produces as part of operating under load.

In 1997, the Ford Transit was offered with a pair of diesel engines and a petrol engine. But the most powerful of them (the petrol) could muster up just 83kW, which, combined with the weight of the vehicle (around 1600kg) plus the weight of the camper conversion (maybe another tonne with full water tanks etc), equals paltry performance and acceleration.

The simplest thing to do is make sure the engine is tuned to its absolute best. But even then, you’re fighting an uphill (literally) battle thanks to all that mass, not to mention the appalling aerodynamics of a campervan. If you don’t mind spending a lot more money, you could upgrade the engine and transmission to a more modern one but, at that point, you’re probably better off buying a newer van altogether.

Maybe in 1997 life was quite a bit slower and your vehicle wasn’t such a mobile roadblock. That said, plenty of modern day caravaners are happy to sit at 80 or 90km/h, so maybe you just need to find the right mindset and become a bit more Zen with your camper. Of course, even if you do manage that, some driving tasks such as overtaking and merging into traffic will require plenty of forward planning and understanding from other motorists.

There’s a fair bit going on in a Ranger’s all-wheel-drive driveline, so you can expect a bit more noise than that generated by a conventional car. It’s not uncommon, either, for one example of a car to be a bit noisier than another of the same make and model and this is all down to what’s called production tolerances where there might be slight differences in two otherwise identical components.

In the case of driveline noises, it’s often said that a noise is more of a concern when it’s heard all the time, not just at a particular speed or frequency. If the noise goes away below 80km/h and is gone by 90km/h, then it could easily be one of these transient noises that doesn’t signify much to worry about. Concern should set it, however, if these noises, their volume and/or their duration start to change or become more frequent. At that point, you can be pretty sure things are changing inside the driveline and that’s usually an early sign of components starting to wear. Keep and ear on things and if the noises change, have them checked out. If you’re still concerned, have a mechanic who knows these vehicles well take a ride in it at the problem speed and have them compare it with other Rangers.

You could scour wrecking yards (as they used to be known) for the bits and pieces you need to replace, but you would potentially be buying parts with the same – or more – wear than the ones you already have. Some things, like rubber belts, globes, tyres and filters, you just can’t trust unless they’re brand new.

Pulleys and their bearings are considered service items meaning they will eventually need to be replaced. When that time comes, the best advice is to replace them with good quality replacement parts, as that’s the only way to make sure the same problem won’t reoccur in a short space of time.

Be wary, too, of really cheap replacement parts you can order online from no-name suppliers. That’s not to say cheap parts can’t be good parts, but quality is sometimes pretty sub-standard and you won’t know that until you’ve paid for them to be fitted and they’ve subsequently failed. And getting your money back from an online seller can be next to impossible in many cases.

The Ford Puma is built in Craiova, Romania.

The Ecoboost petrol engine fitted to these cars has been known to give problems, usually in the form of cylinder head faults and oil leaks as a result. The open-deck cylinder block design is often quoted as the cause of these failures, and it’s not inconceivable that such a failure could cause problems with the cylinders or pistons over time.

However, no modern car can be considered acceptable if the engine fails at such a low mileage. Ford is unlikely to consider this a warranty job given the age of the vehicle, but it would be worth talking to Ford’s customer service division to see if there’s any help on offer.

For the record, the cars most affected by the cylinder head failure problem were built between 2012 and 2014, but even if you bought your car in 2015, it could have been made in 2014 and might be one of the affected ones.

The Territory has a yellow check-engine light just on the outside of the tachometer’s face, around the 2000rpm mark. Perhaps that’s what you saw flickering on. This is probably nothing to worry about as the light immediately switched itself off, suggesting that whatever the problem was, it was a fleeting one.

This light is linked to the car’s onboard diagnostic system which monitors the entire car for faults and then logs them for future problem-shooting. If a problem occurs twice within a certain time-frame, then the check-engine light must illuminate to warn the driver to have the car checked and the problem fixed.

If the light reappears and stay lit up, then you need to act to have the problem found and fixed before it has the chance to do any permanent damage to the car’s driveline. As a side-note, a car with an illuminated check-engine light is technically unroadworthy.

This generation Ford Focus was the first to use electro-hydraulic power-steering. As such, you can’t transpose the rack and pinion hardware from any other model; it would need to be this exact version of the Focus for everything to be compatible.

Once you’ve swapped the hardware, the electronics would also need to be coded and matched to the car’s body computer, as this is what controls the speed-sensitive variations in the steering assistance as well as functions such as the self-parking facility.

This sounds like a body computer problem. The body computer is the brains that controls a huge range of features but, tellingly, also the climate control and entertainment systems, as well as functions such as the wipers, central locking and much more. These computers can sometimes fail and require replacement, but sometimes they can be rebooted or 'returned to factory settings’ to use an IT term.

The easiest way to do this – not to mention the cheapest – is to disconnect the car’s battery and leave it overnight. It sounds odd, but this will sometimes force the reboot it needs to begin operating properly again. It doesn’t always works and even if it does, the effects may not be permanent. But it’s well worth a try before you take it to an auto electrician or specialist.

1350 units of the second generation Ford GT were be assembled at Ford's facility in Ontario, Canada, while 4038 examples of the first generation were built.