Engine Malfunction

[drjaking]

The other day in heavy traffic on a hot day the Engine Malfunction light came on. I was concerned but as nothing seemed wrong I continued the journey. About 100 miles later, I stopped the car and after 5 mins restarted it, and the message had cleared. Then a few days later the same happened, a long journey with no problems followed by the engine message in heavy traffic. Again, a little rest and the message cleared itself.

Question 1: Anyone got any idea what this might be?

Question 2: I found my old ELM323 USB OBD device doesn't work so I couldn't read the fault code, which I presume is still logged. Can anyone recommend a cheapo bluetooth OBD adaptor, and some freebie software that reads and clears codes?

Cheers,

John

[gregers]

have you done the onboard computer check?
i sometimes get this,ive put it down to a wheel sensor because it only seems to happen when its wet or ive gone through a puddle.
but it could be something completely different.

[drjaking]

 

What's the on-board computer check?

[Chrispb]

Coming home from work the other morning I had that, I put it down to pressing the brake and throttle at the same time, I had noticed I was revving the engine while braking but wasn't till I parked the car and just before switching off noticed the engine light was on.
After restarting the engine the light was out.

I run the onboard test, there were 4 DTC's all of which were invalid data

[drjaking]

Had similar with my previous car (a Citroen). In general I think the fault sensors are so many and in some cases so sensitive that as the car ages the whole system seems to become prone to false positives, or at least notifications of problems that you don't really need to worry about too much.

But it's hard to know how serious. So what's this onboard computer test you can do? Does it tell you the fault codes without having to get an OBD scanner?

[Chrispb]

It's explained in the video below

https://www.fordmpv.com/smf2/reference-library-9/ford-smaxfocus-diagnostic-check/

The S-Max in the video has an ignition key if you have the power start button you can still do the test.
Press and hold the OK button don't press clutch or brake pedal just press and release the power button, when the test screen displays use the up and down arrows to cycle through the menu

[drjaking]

That's awesome, thank you. Is there a database of DTC codes somewhere? Can they be cleared or do you need OBD for that?

[Chrispb]

I just looked up each code on the net for an explanation, as for clearing them yes a compatible reader, I have a generic reader but doesn't work on this car.