2010 Focus TDCi wont start

[DXP55]

Why does it happen when the wife has the car to go to her sisters - She is death to anyone and anything.
Wife rang to say she was starting back - 10min later rang again and said car won't start - Nothing happens - can't even lock the car - Fortunately we have Ford breakdown (aka- AA ) - They came out and find it is a bad earth on the immobiliser in the door - Did a temp fix and car starts but it is now too late for her to start back so won't be back till tomorrow when she will tell me what and where problem was.
Can anyone shed any light on this sort of problem - Searching Youtube it could be the main earth from battery to strut housing but who knows.
It's had a new alternator and battery in last 18 months and I regularly check tightness of battery terminals as we had a problem once with a lose terminal.
I certainly don't need this at the moment.

Update from AA by email. - By way this car is keyless start

No ignition- no crank -radio not working. Checked all fuses. ok checked and adjusted two earth points on drivers side door opening.dash lights returning along with radio but PATS light still flashing.
Placed key fob near hotplate on cowling and vehicle starts. This needs to be done (with pressing unlock button) each time to start the vehicle as immobiliser not disengaging.

ps - I wonder if wife's keyfob battery is low - but it does tell you on dash if it is.

 

[andy_mk3]

Bad earth on the immobiliser in the door.. that's the biggest load of BS I have heard from the AA in a long time. The immobiliser (PATS) is contained within the instrument cluster unit, I cant think of anything in the door which would cause such a problem. I have seen similar problems with Focus' though, often fixed by a software update on the instrument cluster. The instrument clusters are also prone for electrical failure causing similar faults to what you have described.

Seriously though, I've been in the trade for over 10 years, recovery companies make up some very random faults to just get the job out of their hair. Often causing us a lot of headaches trying to explain why the AA said one thing and we're saying something else. I

 

[Howard]

As Andy said above, faulty instrument clusters are not uncommon on the Focus. I’d be willing to bet that’s the cause.

Fortunately it’s not a horrendously expensive fix - you could do it yourself with a second hand cluster from eBay, a copy of ForScan, and a Ford-specific ELM adaptor from eBay.

Edit: re reading your past paragraph suggests maybe the fault lies with the fob instead - try a new battery or a spare

 

[DXP55]

Problem sorted
AA man told wife how to start it and she got home - everything was going mad -dashcams -android radio -cluster -mpg fluctuating etc.

The AA man was right - it was earth problems -First thing we did was remove battery cables -cleaned up loops and wire brushed the chassis (The earth was clamped onto painted bodywork) -Also looked at earth the AA man had found under trim on sill under drivers door -Same here clamped onto the paintwork.
Connected battery back up and works a treat - Starts instant- in hindsight I should have realised because it wasn't starting instantly - a slight hesitation before it started.

Of all times to pack up it has to be on one day I was going clay shooting - ruined my weekend.

 

[Phemo]

Funnily enough I had something similar in my wife's S-Max last year. I was driving in France and there was a dead animal in the road while driving at night - no idea what it was but it was pretty hefty and clearly one or two cars had already hit it. I had no hope to avoid it as I was overtaking a lorry at the time and it made me realise that the headlights were more like a pair of candles. Anyway the car was ok except for losing its undertray and destroying the rear bumper (yet no damage to the front oddly) and I drove the last 50 miles to my destination without a problem. However I tried to start it a bit later but it just didn't work - the dash lights came on, the equivalent of ignition position 1, but the starter didn't even attempt to engage and there were no dash warnings or messages whatsoever.

Was inspecting the car the next day after bricking it due to wife having removed euro breakdown cover and me not realising (that'll teach me to not double-check these things) and the thing fired straight up. It behaved itself for the rest of the trip except for one instance. When I got back to the UK I got the car booked into a garage and they couldn't find any issue either. Only when the guy asked if I had another key did it occur to me that the times the car failed to start was when it was only me in the car, with the spare key on me. All the other times my wife was in the car too with her key. I never even thought of slotting the key into the emergency key slot.

Fortunately it's never happened again since so I've not had a chance to eliminate the key as being the issue or not, but I'm waiting for it.