Ford - Focus :: 2003 - Check Engine Light Came On / Gasket Leak
Mar 14, 2013
Ok I just bought a used 2003 Ford Focus from a dealership which I am financing and after the second day driving the check engine light came on. Once I saw that I took it back to the dealer and he told me the sensor was very sensitive and because I didn't close the gas tank tightly the light came on. I didn't feel satisfied with this answer so I took the car for a diagnostic. They informed me that the car had a gasket leak. I then took the car back to the dealership and told them what I had been informed and the mechanic told me that it wasn't a big deal, nothing for me to worry about. Now I don't know much about cars and I have been doing a little research of my own and a gasket leak seems to be a big problem.
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I bought the little car to get off my motorcycle and its done great. But, after a couple trips around town my check engine light came on, and I imiditely noticed a change in my idle and engine performance. Im assuming my engine changed the air/fuel ratio to account for the sensor indications. My initial code read came back with four codes which said something about spark, and O2 sensor, and emissions. I went ahead put new spark plugs, gaped them as well as replaced the first O2 sensor.
After that I reconnected my battery and sure enough no engine light and my idle felt even better than before. (by the way my old plugs looked normal) But shortly down the road the light came on again. My idle did become a little different but not like my first encounter with the engine light. My power too seems a bit degraded, as well as the engine's sound. As of right now I am only reading one code P0422, which I do not see in the manual. I read online that its probably my catalytic converter or my engine is running at an improper air/fuel ratio. I am praying that it is not my catalytic converter and just my engine computer throwing things off.
Other things which may serve as clues:
Slight valve cover gasket leak (I will change the gasket when I do my timing belt job along with other seal and probably the water pump)
When pumping gas I can get about 90 cents in at a time, now more like 40 cents since the Saudis lowered our gas prices. Assuming I've got some kind of venting problem.
Car has 107K manual shift.
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My 2004 Focus passed its emissions test in Maryland in the late fall last year. Shortly thereafter, the check engine light came on. My mechanic put it on the computer and said it needed a new catalytic converter. It only had 86,000 miles on it. I watched and waited for a few months and had the fuel filter changed during a routine oil change. A couple of days after the fuel filter was replaced the check engine light went off and stayed off for 4 months, but it came back on a couple of days ago. I have been watching the mileage carefully and it has been steady at about 26 MPG for years.
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I have a 2009 Corolla with 48,000 miles. Yesterday night, the check engine and vsc off lights came on. By the way, a gasket is starting to leak (probably unrelated to the lights).
How urgent are the lights? Can I wait to get the car into an independent dealer next Tuesday?
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2004 Ford Focus, 2 Liter Zetec engine.0. Situation: Car initially running well but want to improve mileage, so I installed premium plugs.1. Ran roughly on test run, so headed home. Check Engine light came on before fully warmed up.2. Found and corrected loose plug wire.3. Engine now purrs like a kitten, but Check Engine light stays on.
What should I do now?
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I have a 2001 Ford Focus ZX3 (2D Hatchback) that has been randomly stalling since we bought it. There is no engine light, the dealership couldn't get it to stall and just gave it back. Another garage got it to stall and thought it might be the "idle-oxygen sensor" (not sure if I'm remembering the name correctly), but that didn't stop it from stalling either.
My wife is ready to dump it, but even spending a couple thousand a year on repairs is less than the grand total of a year's payments on a new car, insurance, etc. But it would be nice to fix it.
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I have a 2006 SAAB 9-2X, that I just bough used with 116k. The car rides great and I am really enjoying it. The one problem is that there is an intermittent smell of burning. Some days its strong, some days there is no smell at all. It is really weird. I took it to my mechanic for its inspection and he passed it and said that the care looked great. I havent seen a leak, the check engine light is not on and there is no smoke.
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I drive a 2001 Ford Focus ZTS with ~133000. I just recently filled up my coolant reservoir with 50/50 coolant. 2 days later I needed to fill it again. I went through an entire jug of coolant in 4 days. It seems to be leaking from the top of the engine and the engine runs slightly rough and has a hard time starting some days (more often recently). How bad is it doc?
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I've got a 1997 F150 with the 4.2L V6. Before I got it last summer I did some research, but apparently missed the issue with the intake manifold gasket leaks on these early engines. It seems to be a very slow leak, but obviously I want to get it fixed. I called Ford to see if it had had the recall work done on it, but all they could tell me is that there wasn't an open recall on my truck (with the exception of the recent fuel tank strap recall). Their system apparently only goes back 10 years, so they couldn't even see the freakin' recall. So, I've got a few questions:
1) I know I didn't post much info, but does this seem like an intake manifold leak?
2) Are there any special tools needed to change out the gasket myself?
3) Can you all recommend any replacement gaskets? I found a few different manufacturers of gaskets, but I'm sure some are better than others.
4) Can this issue cause the computer to throw the loose gas cap code (P0455 if I recall correctly).
5) Would it be worth it to just get a new truck? I really wanted a diesel in the first place, but I also hate to give up on a nice truck with only 115,000 miles.
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So, when I bought my truck, it leaked oil.....bad. It goes through around 2-3 quarts a week. I needed a vehicle, this one was cheap, so...I run it. Every other day, I put half a tank of gas and a couple quarts of oil in it. It leaks on the passenger side, right above the starter. I figured it was the valve cover gasket, and planned on changing it today. I saw a post about the "typical" head gasket oil leak, which sound suspiciously like what mine is doing. I have no oil in the coolant,or vice-versa.....
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I recently had a Jasper rebuilt engine installed in my Ford E150. Since than my check engine light keeps coming on and the computer is saying my cas air mix is "lean". The instaler says i need a new fuel pump.Another mechanic says it is more likely a vacuum problem.I know it's possible that the fuel pump is bad bur since this has just started since the install, I don't believe it can be the fuel pump unless it's just one hell of a coincidence.
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I have a 2009 ford f150 4.6l 3v v8 standard cab with about 53k miles on it.
Recently the check engine light came on so i went to autozone to have the codes pulled for free, it says i have a small evaporative leak.
They said may be the gas cap, but the thing is, i have a quick fill cap that came in stock with truck so the gas cap isnt even needed.
I've looked under the hood, and noticed that there is little pool of oil on top of the valley of the engine on the passenger side of the engine, could it possibly be the PCV hose that is bad and be related to the evaporative leak code? or its unrelated and i have a bad gasket for the valve cover?
It isn't affecting the performance of the engine,.. yet. I have a road trip for my work coming up very soon and i wanted to try to fix it before then.
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I have a 2008 Mazda CX-7, I take it in routinely for oil changes. somewhere between oil changes, there was an oil leak that had developed. no warning lights came on - no check engine light or oil light but the levels were low. I don't know how long it was leaking for, there was never any oil in the driveway or garage.
Any way, I took it to my dealer when diagnosed it with a dye test and told me that I needed to replace the oil filter, gasket and the entire oil cooler to properly fix the leak.
My question is for an opinion as to how urgent this repair is or if I should try and take it to a local mechanic, not my dealer. I have to say my dealer's service is less than desirable anyway. I have been checking the oil levels since I had it in on the 20th of January and it has not gone done. there are small spots on occasion on the driveway but nothing too major and I have not had to add oil to it since I had it looked at.
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I have a 2003 Explorer with the 4.0 K motor. It has a vacuum leak and the check engine light will come on from time to time. My work buddy has a high end computer and it showed that the driver side bank was running lean. The computer showed the O2 sensors to be working fine, and I replaced the PCV valve. All other vacuum line appear to be in good condition and I tried the spray test with the break cleaner with the motor running. This is leading me to believe the air intake gaskets where due for replacement. Here is my problem, I can not get the last bolt out of the plenum. The one on the driver side up against the fire wall. I tried to remove the cowl in order to get a straight shot at it but I can not get the seem seal to break free.
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Ford Focus Station Wagon 2006 - Seems to have electrical problem. Warning lights for check engine and ABS come on randomly. Also when car is parked and temperature is low, Clock time is lost and radio stations are lost. Is there some type of grounding issue?
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I replaced the filter and gasket on my transmission about a month ago, it had a slight leak when I changed it, that appeared to be coming from the back side of the pan. So changed it and everything seemed good, today I noticed a small puddle of fluid under the truck after setting only a few minute's. Got home crawled under it and sure enough it was coming from the pan gasket again, now last time when I replaced it. I put a small amount of Permatex on the gasket back there, but it is still leaking there.
I checked when i had it apart the other day for a crack or anything noticeable but figured it was just the gasket was bad ( was a cork type gasket). Its hard to get the pan in there between the cross member and the transmission so I am not sure if i scrapped the permatex off or not, I am gonna take it all back apart and check it again and put a new gasket in and put the permatex under the gasket and on the transmission then hope for the best... 97 4.6 4x4
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I had a check engine light cane on. I took it for it to get checked and they gave me this code- P0457 EVAP small leak detected. ECM has detected a large leak in the EVAP System during a system monitor test.
The paper said I had a leak in the Evap canister or hose. I took the truck to a mechanic and was told I had Bad oxygen sensors. Can Bad/Dirty oxygen sensors make this error code come up?
Exactly where the oxygen sensors are? I was told they were behind the mufflers but I didn't see any and the diagram I found was not accurate.
2002 Ford Ranger XLT v6 extra cab.
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2002 F250 SD 4X4 5.4L. 4.5 inch pro comp lift tire size 305/75/R16. K&N cold air set up. 208,000kms
I know the truck does horrible on gas but lately is been getting worse, maybe I am getting 350km to a tank. Mixed highway city driving. Sounds like I might have a vacuum leak somewhere but I have no engine light. I've had the truck since last year and put about 10,000km. on it done regular oil changes .. brake maintenance no motor work so far.
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I've never had a drop of fluid leak from my transmission until yesterday. I towed a very heavy trailer (10k or so with tons of tongue weight) about 300 miles and I got back and noticed a decent amount of fluid leaking. The transmission temperature never went over 160 on the drive. I know these transmissions tend to puke oil sometimes, but doesn't that only happen when they overheat, or would a very heavy trailer have the same symptom?
It appears the leak is coming from somewhere near the back of the pan around the gasket. More specifically, it seems the one bolt pictured below is leaking. All bolts are tight and the pan gasket was replaced about 6k ago with the last fluid flush.
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New truck to me. Truck was advertised with a slow coolant leak. Figured I would trace the leak down and get it repaired no issues. Anyway, working on it this evening I take a close look around the oil filler area and notice the dreaded milkshake color.
I drained the oil out of the truck and the oil actually came out nice and black. Is the headgasket the only area that would cause the oil/coolant mixture? Supposedly the truck has never been overheated.
At any rate, on to find articles on how to pull apart a 4.6L Triton head. I'll see if I'm up to this challenge.
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I have a real problem with 2000 Ranger, after changing the upper radiator hose and thermostat, I now have a pretty constant leak from the gasket between the thermostat body and engine. Appears to be something that is triggered by the thermostat opening, so whatever the leak, the thermostat is blocking it.
I've changed the gasket, cleaned the mounting surface as good as I could. Tried re-torquing the bolts, but on that score - what is the torque specs for the 2000 3.0 liter Ranger?
But ultimately, what the heck is wrong here? This should be a pretty brainless operation really. Am I tightening the connection too much and cracking the gasket? I guess that has just occurred to me, although the gasket is not as stiff as a typical fiber gasket is.
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