Strange symptoms!

[Morgansflooring]

I have a 66 plate euro 6 engine with ad blu

I recently had to pay to £4200 to fix my van because I think my thermostat was faulty too.
Driving along the motor way no warning from the thermostat gauge, all of a sudden the warning light came on to pull over as the engine was too hot. Got it recovered to the garage to find out that the head gasket failed , cracked head, thermostat, water pump. Been serviced every year at ford just out of warranty and because I missed my services by 4000 miles each year they’re offering no good will. A ford technician I spoke to off the record said they have replaced numerous head gasket because of the thermostats. Does anyone have any knowledge that would help me? Thanks

[2tall]

To close this off...


if you have limp mode type symptoms but with no warning lights... watch your temp gauge... if it flickers up when the limp mode occurs then you have a faulty thermostat.

Ford have a new part that solves the issue...I have had this issue for 7000 miles without any stored fault code and lots of pointless dealer visits.


New thermostat assembly and it drives perfectly again. Remap loaded back on and all is well.

Just want to thank you for taking the time to write the follow-up for this.

I’m currently 2500 miles from home and the van has exactly the same symptoms It started when I got to Portugal and was driving up a mountain on top gear: suddenly no power at all. Temperature gauge needle jumped up a notch, then I switched to a lower gear and the van got full power again. It happened a couple of times but no fault codes or anything so I thought it might be just some fuel issues.

Now I’m on my way back home and the van started acting up again when I was crossing Spain. Lost the power when climbing up a mountain and this time had trouble getting it going again. Crawled up some more mountains doing 60 km/h and the temp gauge acting up, then I pulled over and found your post.

Gotta see tomorrow if I can find a place to get the thermostat changed somewhere in Valencia. The van still drives OK if I keep it under 105 km/h and have the heater on so I’ll probably just keep going if I can’t get it changed. Still a long a long way to go

[2tall]

Visited two Ford dealers in Spain while passing by today, no help from there.

Crossed the mountains on the French border doing 40 km/h and the heater blowing at full speed

It seemed to get worse during the day, but could still keep up with the trucks if I kept it on 5th gear and the heater on full blast if there were no major hills.

Contacted the first German dealer near the French border and they immediately recognised the problem and said that they can change the thermostat when I get there.
Gotta crawl 800 kms tomorrow to get there. Bloody Ford

[Tezenforcer40]

Dont know if this will help but here goes,
Ducato 150bhp comfortmatic gearbox motorhome 12k miles.
driving on the flat at any speed it was ok, motorway speeds if reached at a normal pace ok, but going uphill especially under load it jumped into limp mode.
A commercial vehicle garage put a diagnostic machine on it and said it was fuel pump pressure switch cleared the fault and all was well until the next big hill and back into limp mode.
AA called another diagnostic reading as mass airflow sensor, managed to get home and booked in at a garage but a two week wait. I thought I shouldn't be having these two items failing on a low mileage van so I decided to have a look my self. I stripped all the air flow pipes off air box filter to find a mouse nest and three dead mice stuck in the tube between air box and mass flow air sensor. It was when under load and the turbo fully spun up the the pressure sucked all the contents onto the sensor and caused it to drop into limp mode. why are garages so reliant on diagnostic tools and forgetting basic mechanics and how many of the listed expensive parts would have been changed before the obvious was found.
long winded but may help.

[2tall]

New thermostat fixed the problem. Feels kinda stupid to pay Ford to fix their own problems but what can you do