Ford Focus C-Max 2003 Dashboard Warning light

[THNX4THT]

Hi

 

my partners car has had a warning light show up. It is a picture of a cog. Upon research he has found out it apparently means "fuel additive to be checked every 37,000 miles". Can anybody tell me what this means, and which fuel additive we're talking about and what additive needs to be added and where? Also a steering wheel with an exclamation mark in the picture of the steering wheel

 

Many thanks

[BankFodder]

Is this an old car? I seem to remember that in the early days of unleaded fuel it was necessry to add a substance to fuel to make it compatible with an engine designed for leaded fuel. However, I thought that it had to be added with every fill-up.

I think that you need to provide vehicle details

[citizenkain]

if its a pic of a red cog with an exclamation mark in the middle it means theres a prob with the powertrain,the steering wheel sign means theres something wrong with the power steering,might be leaking,needs topping up,go and tell the garage

[THNX4THT]

Is this an old car? I seem to remember that in the early days of unleaded fuel it was necessry to add a substance to fuel to make it compatible with an engine designed for leaded fuel. However, I thought that it had to be added with every fill-up.

I think that you need to provide vehicle details

The only other info I have is its a Mark 1. if that helps :o)

[THNX4THT]

if its a pic of a red cog with an exclamation mark in the middle it means theres a prob with the powertrain,the steering wheel sign means theres something wrong with the power steering,might be leaking,needs topping up,go and tell the garage

Thanks for the info, I'll pass it on :o)

[citizenkain]

Bankfodder he says its a 2003 car,it shouldnt need additives to the fuel,i know some of the old leaded petrol ones used to need lead replacement putting in as you say but surely from 2003 it shouldnt need that

[heliosuk]

The sign you are seeing is a powertrain issue one. The fuel additive is available from Ford and is for the first generation diesel particulate filters to enable them to re generate/clean themselves. The additive is injected in the front of the DPF and raises the temperature of the filter thus enabling the core to burn off the soot.

Never really worked particularly well though and was replaced by generation two and subsequent iterations.

[BankFodder]

Bankfodder he says its a 2003 car,it shouldnt need additives to the fuel,i know some of the old leaded petrol ones used to need lead replacement putting in as you say but surely from 2003 it shouldnt need that

 

Sorry - it was all in the title - which I didn't read!!!

[THNX4THT]

I probably should have mentioned its petrol not diesel....silly me

[THNX4THT]

Is this an old car? I seem to remember that in the early days of unleaded fuel it was necessry to add a substance to fuel to make it compatible with an engine designed for leaded fuel. However, I thought that it had to be added with every fill-up.

I think that you need to provide vehicle details

What sort of details would i need to give? age wise , its 11 - 12 years old.

[heliosuk]

You'd need to get the codes read as it's petrol. Assumed it was diesel as someone mentioned dosing. If you can get that done it's relatively easy to determine what the issue is, the clever bit is knowing why and that's where most garages get it wrong. They assume that because it shows a fault saying EGR fault for example, that particular part must be faulty but often it's not the actual fault. The fault could flag as the result of something else.

[Bandit127]

You should either get the codes read by a garage - or find a cheaper way to do that. (For example ebay sells code readers for my VW for about £15 - I don't know about Fords).

 

Without the codes you are asking us to guess and that could lead you down the wrong path entirely.

[Conniff]

Is this an old car? I seem to remember that in the early days of unleaded fuel it was necessry to add a substance to fuel to make it compatible with an engine designed for leaded fuel. However, I thought that it had to be added with every fill-up.

I think that you need to provide vehicle details

 

Bankfodder he says its a 2003 car,it shouldnt need additives to the fuel,i know some of the old leaded petrol ones used to need lead replacement putting in as you say but surely from 2003 it shouldnt need that

 

Sorry - it was all in the title - which I didn't read!!!

 

 

Still, it's reassuring to have these 'old' advisors on here so nothing can get missed

[Conniff]

There are known faults with Ford clusters and have been for a good 7-8 years.

As in post #11, you need the codes read and then take it from there.

[labrat]

if you look on any popular auction site you can get a bluetooth code reader for about £4-£8, some of them have known issues with fords so check with the seller

it will connect to iphone or android on an app called torqe

 

been using one for a while on citroens and renaults perfect never had a ford in