I have a 2004 5 door focus 1.8 tdci. I have been experiencing an intermittent problem. The car starts fine when cold. If I go on a short journey, stop the car and try to restart it after 10-15 minutes, the engine turns over, but won't start. The glow-plug warning light flashes. My 10 minute trip to the shops can now take an hour or two before it decides to start again.
Any ideas? Thanks, Mike.

 

Could be the crankshaft sensor that doesn't work anymore when warmed up.
With a flashing glow plug light you can probably get a fault code read at that moment.

When does the light start flashing? When you switch on the "ignition"? Or when you start to crank the engine?

 

the light starts flashing at different times: sometimes after switching on the ignition and other times after cranking the engine. I didn't know about the crankshaft sensor, thanks. I have been told to check the anti knock sensor, though.

 

Without the fault codes it's anybody's guess.

 

how do I get these fault codes? Do I need to go to a Ford dealer?

 

oh the good old 1.8tdci starting issues. famous for bad cold start and occasionally warm start.

My mum's focus started with the cold start and we replaced a few bits which did nothing and then we got the warm start problem. only parts we didn't get round to replacing (before my brother wrote the car off) were the crank possition sensor and the starter motor.

Good luck finding the problem as they are damn near impossible to fix!

 

Maybe a dealer can find more, but a good independent will also have equipment to read the codes. It's a starting point and depending on what those codes are you proceed with diagnosing the problem. Your choice where to go.

 

thanks!