Brilliant! much appreciated, that really gives me something to work with. I'll look at the mileage reading more carefully - I seem to recall the display just shows scrolling warnings like bonnet open or door open.

Since the original posting I got a mate of a mate to put a better diagnostic computer on it and it came up with a fault code (stupidly, I didn't write it down) relating to something along the lines of an unexpected/miss-matched/ CAN signal in the PATS system, which he believes (after consulting with one of his mates who is Ford trained) - is due a failure of the instrument panel.

I am considering sending the instrument display to a specialist repairer (there are one or two I found on the net) for test/repair (as opposed to getting another one and being charged a quoted £80 just to configure it). I would then be sure that part was fully sorted.

Has anyone got any experience of any instrument repairers?

However, I'm going to check that CAN resistance and those plugs first (I think I have probably done a few already just cos I could see them).

To hard wire the CAN BUS, I assume I would need to run new complete lengths of wire, as I seem to recall from similar applications, soldering is not acceptable due the resistance changes.

I'll keep you posted on my successes (hopefully).

Thanks again

Julian