Hi Stuart

I have a ford fiesta ghia 1.6 2002. I have also had this same EAC Fail problem which has been ongoing for 4 months now. I too have had a new throttle body which I had to wait 9 weeks for as the part was on back order at the factory and also the loom that connects it, but the problem still persists. The car s back at the ford garage and I have now been told that the faulty throttle body which is a known fault with fords, has further damaged something in the engine bay and to repair it will cost around £800. My argument is that if it was a known fault why the cars were not re-called? I have only done 15000 miles and an engine should not develop a fault so early on. Has your car been back to the garage as yet?

Jaz

 

Hi Jazz,

It's a shame no-one else has posted on this thread. I have indeed had my car in the garage for most of a week. Allan Ford (my local dealership) had to contact Ford Technical as they couldn't work out why the parts they were changing weren't fixing the problem. They said they went through 10 pages of diagnostics that Ford Technical suggested, and as I expected the PCM (or ECU as it used to be called) was found to be faulty. The cost of replacing this was £616 after VAT and they refunded me for the throttle body and pedal so the total cost was £616. I think this is a lot of money to fix a fault that should have never occurred in the first place; though the fault has not recurred in the last 5 days so I think this has actually fixed it!! I have read of many people having the same issues on the internet and all of them say they've had the throttle body changed without the problem being fixed. Allan Ford told me they have never had further problems after changing the throttle body, but it's a known fault with the Fiesta between 02 and 04. Yours is VERY low mileage for its age, mine's 34000 miles in 5.5 years which I consider to be low and I too agree that it shouldn't be developing a fault like this after such a short time.

The thing that worries me is that my old throttle body was manufactured in 2005, so I wonder if the previous owner had this issue before. In any case, £800 is a bit steep if you ask me. I think the garage you've gone to has changed the throttle body as a "best guess" and now they want to change the PCM (probably as a second guess). As the Ford garage I went to only wanted £616 for this including fitting, I would suggest you speak to your garage and ask them to refund you for the throttle body as this hasn't fixed the issue. This is assuming you didn't ask them specifically for the throttle body to be changed; if their diagnosis was the throttle body and this hasn't fixed it then you're entitled to your money back for that part. They will come out with some ridiculous story about how the old one was broken and the change was necessary and believe me, I've heard it all before. To get to the bottom of this, I've had four new throttle bodies that haven't fixed anything, a new throttle pedal, and finally a new PCM computer. At each stage, the parts were "definitely faulty and in need of replacement" and yet they refitted my old "faulty" throttle pedal and my old throttle body and they both work fine with the new PCM so what does that tell you?

I agree that if the car has a known fault, they should be sorting this out for free on a recall; but my brother's line of work is closely related to the design and manufacture of vehicles and he informs me that they have no legal obligation to do a recall on a faulty part unless it compromises the safety of the vehicle. Therefore a faulty weld on the chassis or airbags that sometimes fail would be recalled, but the inability to accelerate doesn't come under the category of safety so they're hiding behind the law on this one.

Hope this helps and I hope you can fix your car without too much expense,

Stuart

 

Hi Stuart

The part they said they need to replace on my car is the main engine bay wiring loom, and requires the dash etc taking out so is about a 9 hr job. What I am worried about is if they fix that, then it still does it because it needs a new computer where do I stand because I dont want to keep sheding out money. I am calling ford back tomorrow to speak to a manager about them paying for the repair because I dont see why I should when it is a manufacturing issue. And as for them not recalling the cars, this problem is dangerous when the enigne stalls etc you could potentially be in a very serious accident especially when my car only does the EAC Fail thing when I am at speeds between 60-70mph. My car started doing it once every few weeks and then it was happening every other day. sounds as though yours was everyday??What sort of speeds did this occur to you? The garage said they will back me with challenging ford for the repair free of charge so even if I have to pay I will still persue them and will also go to watchdog. Ford technical have said they are confident my problem is a wiring problem with the codes that are stored so therefore I need the main engine bay loom replaced. Hopefully this is the cause. The garage who has the car have really tried to help me and I have a curtesy car, they want to keep the car for a few weeks before working on it so they can get the problem to occur when they have it that way they can see exactly what is happening and perhaps save a repair that I may not need, ie the wiring loom. I know there are lots of ppl that have had this problem so I think that something need to be done not only are fords not declaring these faults but they are also profiting from them because ppl are having several things changed before they get to the problem. Can you keep me posted on how your car is in the coming weeks??

Jaz

 

Hi Jaz,

I agree that for a wiring loom to be damaged already means it must have been badly fitted. The stupid thing is that the only wires it could possibly have a fault in are as follows:

the throttle body to a loom
that loom to the PCM (or ECU if you want to call it that)
the PCM to another wiring loom
that wiring loom to the throttle pedal

Absolutely no other part of the wiring system is involved in the EAC; I know because my brother has a copy of the 10 page document Ford were using on my car. It shows the wiring system for this circuit and those are the only wires. I refuse to believe you need the entire wiring system replaced and as my brother pointed out, the wiring system in the car is the single most expensive part since there's so much copper. I would suggest you ask your garage to change only the parts associated with the EAC.

If doing that doesn't fix the problem, there is no reason why you should be paying for it. At the end of the day, you're not asking them to replace specific things, Ford are telling you and them that this is what needs replacing to fix your issue. Ford should definitely be responsible for any lack of fix this work supplies.

As I said before, I've paid £620 to get my PCM changed and the fault still hasn't recurred after having done nearly 200 miles. It was happening daily to my car after Ford started changing parts that didn't need changing. It happened when starting the engine sometimes, it happened when first pulling away and when driving at 65MPH one time, which I can sympathise with you about how scary and dangerous that is because the guy behind me was flashing and beeping as my car rapidly approached 30MPH on a motorway before holding at 30 and not letting me accelerate.

When I say that they only have to recall safety issues, again I agree that they should recall this, but as I explained before, although this can land you in a dangerous situation like the one above, it isn't classed as a safety issue. Safety issues are ones which compromise your safety in the event of an accident; not those which make you more likely to have that accident. I don't want to be on Ford's side regarding this, but that's the facts and there's little we can do to change that.

I would suggest you make a stinking fuss with Ford about this because I suspect if they're going to do the wiring for free, they will want to do it themselves. I doubt they'll pay a third party garage to do the work nor reimburse you if you choose to get that third party garage to do it at your expense. Ford were surprisingly reasonable about the cost after much complaining to their service manager, but they don't offer customer service on first approach in my experience. You need to make sure they know you by name. Trust me; when I came back for the final time to pick up the car, the first thing they said was "Hello, Mr. McHattie. How are you today?" which is the first time they've recognised me without having to ask my name first. Give them hell!!

 

Hi Stuart

Thanks for the reply. I have since found out that Ford have agreed with the dealer which is rates ford to pay 50% of the cost of the repair, apparently it has something to do with the 3 year warranty from new being extended to 5years by ford. If I were you I would seek a refund as it seems your car should be within that 5 year period as a 2003, mine is just out at 6 years registered in 2002, which is why they will not pay the full costs. Give Ford customer relations a call and see where you stand worth a try.

Hope your car continues to work well, would appreciate it if you could keep me updated as it seems the dealer is going to have my car for a while as they want to be sure it is a wiring problem and not the ecu itself before doing the repair, I have a curtesy car so I dont mind and I must admit the dealer have been great, just ford customer relations which arnt much cop. Have even been considering a trade in as I am not sure I will have confidence in the car anymore.

Cheers

Jazz

 

Hi Stuart

How is the car going? They are going to replace the wiring thing in my car, are going to order the part today, I have to pay £400 which is half the cost.

Jazz

 

Hi Jazz,

That's really good news for you. Though it's still a shame you have to pay £400 to fix something that really shouldn't have happened in the first place. My car has been fine, thanks, no more EAC Fails for me as yet. The car does seem a little weird (lumpy if you like) at crawling speeds, but as my brother pointed out, the new computer is probably still learning my engine so I will keep an eye on that and see if it improves.

As for this 50% off because of warranty extension; did your car have an extension bought on the warranty when you got it or did they automatically extend it to 5 years? Do you have any details about why they're willing to pay 50% because I might try to claim this myself from them since Ford did the work anyway. The only thing that I think might work against me is that I bought the car second hand from a Ford dealership 2 years ago so I've not had it from new.

Thanks for keeping me posted about your problem; it should be interesting to see if the wiring fixes the problem for you. I hope it does, but I have my doubts since it took Ford 5 or 6 attempts to fix my car so I feel they just guess until they're lucky with the guess.

Stuart

 

i have a fiesta 1.4 tdci 2004 and my dash displayed EAC FAIL yesterday on the way from work. i took it to a local garage NOT FORD ONE and the friendly guy showed me the computer displayed these codes-

P0101
Mass or Volume Air flow Circuit Range/Performance Problem

P0103
Mass or Volume Air flow Circuit High Input

P0104
Mass or Volume Air flow Circuit Intermittent

he's knows a guy who works for ford so he said he'll give him a ring to shed a bit a light on the problem, but he seems to think its a sensor problem

 

I have a Fiesta 1.4 Zetec, registered Sep 03, only 31k miles. Bought from a Ford dealer just over a year ago.

Just had to get the coil pack and PCM replaced at a cost of £950. I had the work carried out and paid for it as i need the car, but think it is ridiculous to pay so much money for something that should not go wrong, the car is in perfect condition otherwise - that I know of.

Issue has been raised with Ford who are unwilling to do anything because the dealer who fixed the car said this can happen in a car of 5yrs of age.

 

Hello,

The EAC fail code is well known by FORD. It's a default that appears not only on Fiesta but also on Focus (from what I heard).

I got this problem twice despite having a fiesta 1600cc 100 hp from 2004 with 75 000 km (last time it was 2 weeks ago), rev was limited to about 2500 rpm and nothing happenned anymore when I pushed the accelerator. I just started the engine again and then it worked perfectly.

It seems to be a problem with the electronic module or maybe the sensor for the accelerator. Seems also to be very expansive.

 

Re: "EAC Fail" on 2004 Fiesta Ghia 1.4

Hi guys,

I may have a solution for you! After a lot of research into this problem I came across many forums who have also had the same problems and me.

About 2 and a half months ago my car decided to plummet in speed at a busy intersection. The first time it did this nothing displayed on the dashboard. The cars acceleration wouldn't go above 30 kilometers an hour and the revs dramatically rose. After taking it to the garage he thought it could simply be an oil problem. $500 later my car was home and i started to drive it again. This time the car experienced the same problem as before except 'EAC fail' appeared on the dashboard. I took it back to the garage for a second time. The mechanic hooked it to the computer to view the codes. 2 codes were noted 'throttle control body' and 'throttle control censor'. Both parts range from $400-$500. He recommended i go to a ford garage as they specialize in this kind of stuff. I took it to the ford garage and they said they can't test the parts unless they are in my car, and once they are on my car i own them and have to pay for them. So if the part wasn't the correct one i'd still have to pay but also pay for the other part which was actually causing the problem. Ford charge extremely high labor amounts, so i took it to another garage.

The mechanic hooked it to the computer and noted the code 'throttle control sensor'. He knew it could be something else which is stopping the throttle control sensor from performing. He checked the intake manifold and found huge cracks. And bingo! The problem was solved. EAC fail hasn't displayed since. He replaced the intake manifold and the 4 seals around it for $400. If you haven't heard of this problem maybe mention it to your garage and get them to check this part of your engine. It is the 'air to the lungs of your car', as they say. It's critical in the performance of your vehicle.

I hope this has helped because I know it's made me one happy girl to finally have my car back!

Let me know how you go and I'll let you know if i have any more problems.

 

Surprised if the manifold had large cracks that it didn't show up as running lean on scan or was not heard when engine running and checking . Just seen it is an old post , but we had a few with that problem and it was a simple fix with the plug , wiring at TPS / pedal .