Mondeo Mk3 TDCI

[NONOTE]

Just thought I'd enlighten the Forum membership to the delights of common rail diesel ownership! Common rail merely means that all the diesel injectors are fed from one high pressure "common rail" and rely on an electrical firing signal to squirt the diesel into the cylinders at the appropriate time. Makes for really accurate fueling with low emissions and good fuel economy together with petrol like refinement so we are told. The downside is yet another electronic control unit to fire the injectors and guess what, mine has failed! The common rail thing came about in earnest in the early 2000's and the first units bore the brunt of the post development problems. My TDCI Mondeo uses a system from Delphi and for some reason (possibly chasing ever tighter emission regs) there are numerous changes of ecu and injectors over the model's life so getting spares from a scrappy is fraught with problems of part number matching. Later versions (post 03) use a different firing technique on the injectors, getting these mixed up will kill the ecu / injectors and at about 50 notes a time for used injectors caution is needed! Even the main dealers (where my car is now) get confused with the part numbers. My particular system needs the new ECU to be coded to the car and only Fords WDS (testbook equivalent)will do this.
So basically those tempting post 2001 diesel non runners on ebay must be viewed with extreme caution and I'm sure it's the whole industry and not just Ford that will potentially give you grief. Now what's that about dual mass flywheels?

[CHR15E]

Sounds fun.

Guy at work has a Pug 307 where the clutch has just gone. He was worried that the flywheel had blown up.

Think I'll stick with my old bangers.

[metelmickey]

the honda engine in my 827 uses common rail on petrol, don't notice the economy though

[NONOTE]

Well I finally got my car fixed thanks to the tenacity of one technician at GK Ford in Retford. The previous owner had fitted the wrong injectors in his efforts to sort a minor problem. There was nothing wrong with them as such, they were just the wrong part number. Whatever the difference was between these and the correct type it caused the ecu to lock up, fooling every body. All told an expensive learning curve! GK Ford were superbly fair with their bill and let me get my own parts for them to fit, even so the car should have been written off. I could have had about 3 or 4 800's for what I spent on the Mondeo but at least now I'm prepared for lugging stuff about and have learned a lot! They're a spacious tool and my LX has pretty much the same toys as a late 800.

[CHR15E]

Don't think I'll be going near one soon.

Mind I'd have a petrol one anyway.