[milesperhour]

Well... Ford now have another £300 of my money.

This morning (early), my wife drove her brother and his fiancee to Liverpool airport (70miles away) for their Christmas getaway. On the way home (and only 1 mile from our house), she lost all power, and the car came to a halt. Couldn't restart it, although it would turn over. Fuel gauge showing 1/4 left, and predicted distance left was over 100 miles.

The local ford garage was in sight, so I went out to pick her up, and handed the keys to the service reception.

They recovered the c-max. Put it on a diagnostic machine... and the problem? A faulty fuel sender in the tank, which was saying 1/4 full when actually the tank was as dry as a camel with eczema.

So the tank had to be dropped out, a new sender fitted, and the system bled to pump the fuel through.

Total cost was £297 (including £20 of fuel!).

So there goes my chance of an LCD TV in the January sales.

Anyone had a similar problem?

Forgot to say - it's a 2004 "04" 1.6TDCi Zetec.Edited by: milesperhour

 

[MetalMicky08]

I did hear that the sender needs replacing at about 80,000 miles,but this was from some one at the worst ever ford dealership,so I`m not too sure if this true or not.

 

[lazyb]

With the small distance to work and town 7 & 10 miles respectively i seem to fill up fortnightly on a friday tank usually reads quarter but i have noticed some change in the amount i put in ,although recently prices have been all over the place may be better if i start topping up at say 300 miles.

 

[milesperhour]

When I first got the car (in September), the fuel light would come on after about 300 miles, and I'd top up around £30. But the fuel gauge never seemed to get properly full, despite filling till it clicked twice.

Then last time I went to fill, I put in £50... and the gauge read full, so I presumed (wrongly) that there must have been an air-lock or something before, and that this time is was properly full.

In truth, it would seem that the sender had already started to go faulty, and that I had almost emptied the tank that time.

However, despite filling the car with 50 litres, I didn't think anything untoward was going on, as we have recently done several long journeys rather than the usual 5 mile town sprints, so with the average mpg sitting higher than usual (at 47mpg as opposed to 40mpg) I thought that the gauge was correct when it showed 300 miles left after half a tank gone on the gauge, and 300 miles completed.

Since the new sender was fitted today, I've put in 55.5litres. The quoted capacity in the handbook is 55 litres, so it must have been pretty dry!

 

[gmwilkinson]

When I first got my 2003 2.0 TDCI second hand 3 years ago, it used to go into limp home mode for no apprant reason, so I took it into the garage. One of the many things that they replaces under warrenty was the fuel sender. I suspect that the sender was thinking that there was no fuel in the tank and shutting the engine down to save fuel when in fact that was 3/4 tank left. Since it has been replaced therehas not been any problems.

 

[Richard G]

Our 1.6TDCI fuel sender was replaced under warranty just recently (approx 42K)but I'd been keeping a note on how far down the gauge wnt against how much fuel went in. Ours however was reading lower than actual quantity so never got close to running out of fuel thank goodness