2000 Focus - Intermittent Power Loss

[penetrator]

Gidday Guy's,

I car pool to work with a couple of people doing week about driving our cars.

One of the ladies I go with has a 2000 Ford Focus Ghia 2.0l automatic. She has had a fault with it for about a year whereby you will be driving along and all of a sudden it 'stutters' and loses power.

It is noticeable to all of us in the car and I have had it occur whilst driving the car too. It feels as if it is running out of fuel and then it will suddenly kick back into life and keep going. Usually happens every 200kms or thereabouts.

The owner has taken it to various mechanics who have put it on a diagnostic machine and looked at it only to find no faults and told her its fine (1 mechanic replaced the plugs after finding water there assumed to have been caused by her partner who washed under the bonnet!) that was a year ago and the car still has this intermittent fault.

Has anyobe else had this and can offer some advice as to a fix? It has got all of us in the car pool stumped.

[marg99]

did she have the fuel filter changed ?

[penetrator]

dont think she did although i have mentioned that as an option - assume the mechanics (including ford dealership) would have considered that too.....

is there such a thing as a fuel pressure regulator too?

[marg99]

Yes there needs to be a certain level of fuel pressure in the common rail for the injectors to work properly. There is a sensor which tells the fuel pump to put more fuel in the system.
Trouble with intermittent problems is they can also be engine sensors such as crank angle sensor on the blink but not enough to register a fault in the ECU.