# Anyone on here work for Ford as a technician... I need help!



## renton (Nov 27, 2005)

As title.

I have a problem with my smax neither the RAC or my local Ford dealer can fathom !!

Needless to say Im £140 down and still have a car that wont start !:wall:


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## Steve (Mar 18, 2014)

renton said:


> As title.
> 
> I have a problem with my smax neither the RAC or my local Ford dealer can fathom !!
> 
> Needless to say Im £140 down and still have a car that wont start !:wall:


Going to have to give us more than that mate


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## PaulaJayne (Feb 17, 2012)

Crystal ball need batteries.

But my tarot cards say check the giggle pin.


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## renton (Nov 27, 2005)

Yep sorry should of given more info.

I have a 2010 Ford smax 2.0 ecoboost. 41k on the clock.

Its been running fine and gave us no problems what so ever.

Wednesday I got in it to go to Edinburgh and pushed the button to start it and.... nothing, it wouldn't turn over.

I then got "engine malfunction" come up on the dash followed by "immobilizer active"

So I called the RAC out and he had a good luck over the car, disconnected the battery and left it and then reconnected it. #The battery was reading 12.3 volts. It still wouldn't start after this so he scanned the fault codes and it kept coming up with "lost comms with ecm/pcm" when checking the various systems.

So after that he arranged to have the car recovered to my local Ford dealer and they had a look at it yesterday and still could not find what is wrong with it?? 

I mentioned about a battery fault I had found on the net but they seemed a bit dismissive of this. apparently the master tech is have a look at the car today as he wasnt in yesterday.

Any ideas???


EDIT... I have had a couple of low battery warnings on the dash come up recently to.


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## Rowe (Jul 4, 2013)

check earth points, and double check that the cables going to the battery terminals are all tight


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## renton (Nov 27, 2005)

Rowe said:


> check earth points, and double check that the cables going to the battery terminals are all tight


That has been done mate a few times !


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## PaulaJayne (Feb 17, 2012)

Rowe said:


> check earth points, and double check that the cables going to the battery terminals are all tight


+1

Also check charging voltage. 
Fault indicate a bad connection or cable fault.

Paula


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## renton (Nov 27, 2005)

PaulaJayne said:


> +1
> 
> Also check charging voltage.
> Fault indicate a bad connection or cable fault.
> ...


As above ^^^^

would a faulty battery give the "lost comms " fault code ?


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## danwel (Feb 18, 2007)

if youve got another car handy then surely an easy thing to do is to swap batteries and try it to rule it out either way?


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

Assume it's key free ? Have you tried the spare key ?


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## renton (Nov 27, 2005)

Cheers for the replies. 

We have tried both keys and it is the same. 

The rac tried to jump start it and it wouldn't go. 

Ford put a massive power pack on it yesterday and it still wouldn't fire. 

Could the immobiliser be preventing everything from talking and thus stopping the car from starting?


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

Starter motor ? I had a ford Orion that you would stop and then when you went to restart absolutely nothing, have you tried cleaning the power and earth leads on the starter ?


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## SteveyG (Apr 1, 2007)

Have you tried putting the keyfob into the slot on the side of the steering column and starting it? (you have to remove the cover to do it). It sounds like the immobiliser has kicked in which occurs if you try to start the car and it can't communicate to the BCM or ECU. 

Try leaving the battery disconnected for longer and make sure it's fully charged when you reconnect it.


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## Steve (Mar 18, 2014)

SteveyG said:


> Have you tried putting the keyfob into the slot on the side of the steering column and starting it? (you have to remove the cover to do it). It sounds like the immobiliser has kicked in, but Ford should be able to connect it up to IDS and reprogram the unit.


Unless the module has died shutting the ecu down ?


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## SteveyG (Apr 1, 2007)

sjk said:


> Unless the module has died shutting the ecu down ?


Someone on another forum had a fault with the BCM which caused this error. They should still be able to scan for faults to narrow down what module is causing the error.

The ABS module will also cause this error. Check all fuses while the battery is disconnected - oddly one guy's fuse had blown for the interior light which caused this error...


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## renton (Nov 27, 2005)

ust an update. I've just been to the garage and they have managed to get it started but it cut out again when it was connected to the diagnosis machine. The battery was tested and it was showing less than 6volts. It's been on charge for 3 hours today and isn't showing signs of improving so they are going to fit a new one and then test the system to see if anything is drawing current when it shouldn't be.


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## Swanicyouth (Aug 5, 2012)

renton said:


> As above ^^^^
> 
> would a faulty battery give the "lost comms " fault code ?


No, not likely unless the voltage is very low. But, if someone had the car running (jumped), it should run fine - bad battery or not - assuming the alternator is working. I would find it hard to believe 2 different techs looked at your car and couldn't diagnose a bad alternator or battery though.

From what your saying here, it SOUNDS like the scanner can't communicate with the ECM intermittently. That's not good. If that is what is going on, it could be a few things:

1. Bad ECM.

2. Bad ground.

3. Bad wiring or connection at the fuse box.

Since it's a fairly new car, my guess would be the wiring is OK - and that the ECM is faulty. But, a Ford dealer should be able to diagnose that.


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## possul (Nov 14, 2008)

If any battery voltage drops below 10.8 faults it's a possible fault on battery. A good battery should stay above 10.2 volts over a ten second crank.
Just trying to think back to when I worked at ford.
Disconnecting battery did cure a few with none keyless starts, obviously won't work with a duff battery.
Wiring across the gearbox was found a couple of times but that was on manual gearboxes.
I've seen burnt fuses cause all sorts of faults but that would bring more than one fault.
Loose terminals in connector blocks, done some in BCM which is under the pass get side footwell. Any loose connectors down there? 
A decent ford tech should be able to find those faults though
If a BCM or ECU has gone down there will be no communication with said module via the diag machine they will most likely use (IDS)
If that's the case, a live and earth check to the module should be done, if found ok a call to Ford technical support or prior approval should be done, they will either give more guidance or permission to fit a new module, ford cannot just fit modules to cars without authority from higher up!


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## Scrim-1- (Oct 8, 2008)

Alternator?


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## renton (Nov 27, 2005)

All sorted. 

The battery was the problem. One of the cells had died so it wasn't holding a charge. New battery fitted and then the charging system was tested for excessive current draw with no problems found. 

Fault codes cleared and it's all sorted.


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## possul (Nov 14, 2008)

Tbf that should of been checked straight away but glad its all sorted


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

I've just read this and to be honest I've been surprised by the amount of problems I've read about lately that have resulted in so say "specialists" and dealers change no end of parts without starting with the simple things like the battery ?


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## PaulaJayne (Feb 17, 2012)

The so called techs are just bit changers.

The battery was the first thing to test.

1. Voltage.
2. Charging voltage.
3. Discharge test.

Would have found the problem in 10 mins.


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## possul (Nov 14, 2008)

I wad a techy in my last job. I was by no means a fitter.

Dont tar everyone with the samr brush. I own a staffy does that make me a chav to


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## PaulaJayne (Feb 17, 2012)

possul said:


> I wad a techy in my last job. I was by no means a fitter.
> 
> Dont tar everyone with the samr brush. I own a staffy does that make me a chav to


I did post "So called techs".

They missed the basics and should have tested that first.

Another example - my neighbour had an ABS problem - took it to BMW garage and they told him £700 to change the module. I read the car's OBD systems and found it was just the front drivers ABS sensor. £70 and fixed.

The standard is dropping. Either because they can not be bothered or do not think to start from the basics when diagnosing a fault.


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## PugIain (Jun 28, 2006)

PaulaJayne said:


> Another example - my neighbour had an ABS problem - took it to BMW garage and they told him £700 to change the module. I read the car's OBD systems and found it was just the front drivers ABS sensor. £70 and fixed.


Precisely why I own PSA diagnostics.


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## possul (Nov 14, 2008)

@ Paula jayne

Bonuses, pure and simple. Depends on the pserson how well they work, some will just fit stuff and say its fixed only to find the customer jump in the car with the fault. Im not that person! When at ford if faults were not rixed correctly or things had gone wrong thete was chance of disciplinary action being taken. Vw on the other hand was rubbish, ive seen the most awful workmanship happenn in that dealer for the manager/boss to do nothing about it, as the company was so botheted about making money. 
With the amount of tech on them nowadays most assume its something very complicated, ivevhad complicated jobs and some very stupids faults at the same time!


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## Kerr (Mar 27, 2012)

There is little real mechanics left in this world. 

All the dealers just have "techs" that plug in a computer to see the fault and resort to the manual to see what parts to change. 

Too often simple things end up with things going in circles. 

Good to hear the end result was only a battery and nothing major.


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## craigeh123 (Dec 26, 2011)

Glad its sorted but as an ex tech i cant believe they didn't check that first ! Bloody obvious if you ask me . People to ready to jump in at the deep end without keeping it basic first


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