For a long time I wanted to tell about the 1.5-liter turbodiesel produced for Ford cars. Although, it is not necessary to fully call this engine American, because it has French roots. Roughly speaking, it’s just another variation of the 1.6 HDI powertrain, because it’s made from its 8-valve variety. 8-valve HDI began to produce in 2009, and the motor considered today appeared in 2012. Speaking of which, this modification is used exclusively on Ford cars. It stands on almost the entire model range, starting with Focus and Fiesta, moving to Kuga and Mondeo and ending with commercial.
As mentioned at the beginning, this internal combustion engine is developed on the basis of the 1.6-liter in which they simply reduced the diameter of the cylinders. Moreover, Ford’s engine is much better in terms of environmental friendliness. The particulate filter is located behind the turbocharger. The electronic control unit is also responsible for the environmental parameters of the motor with a pair of lamba probes. There are varieties with a nitrogen oxide neutralizer and a very expensive nitrogen oxide sensor. Most varieties of this engine have a variable displacement oil pump.
But in general, it is a classic French turbodiesel with alloy cylinder block, familiar Common Rail system, electromagnetic injectors and belt in the timing drive. The motor has an extensive model lineup in terms of power, from 75 to 120 “horses”, with a step of 5 hp.
It is also worth adding that the 1.5-liter turbodiesel on the products of Citroen and Peugeot companies appeared only in 2017, it develops up to 130 “horses”, has a 16-valve cylinder head with a pair of camshafts. In this motor, the working volume was reduced due to the reduction of the stroke of the pistons.
We recommend you to visit our channel in YouTube, where we have prepared a video with a complete disassembly of this motor, which was dismantled from the Ford Focus 3.
A few words about the reliability of the engine 1.5 TDCI
Turbo diesel from France, even under the hood of American cars still favorably differs in its reliability. We can safely say that engineers from Ford were able to refine the engine and rid it of some of the problems that were typical for 1.6 HDI. But not without minuses, still in this engine there is a very complex system of exhaust cleaning. So many experienced motorists prefer to spend and remove this “ecology”, and not only at the program level, but also physically.
Let’s go through the most famous breakdowns and weak points of this, in general, not bad motor.
Motor support
There are often problems with the right motor support (2111961, 1859287). The reason is that the support is hydraulic, similar to the one on the 2.0 motor from Ford. With severe wear, its body literally lies on the base. The original spare part costs in the neighborhood of 170 dollars, yes, there are substitutes, but they are not distinguished by a long service life.
Exhaust manifold
One of the very frequent problems of this engine is cracks in the exhaust manifold. And it is not always possible to weld it. So it should be added that due to the peculiarities of the location of the particulate filter and nitrogen neutralizer, which are located near the cylinder block, the engine is subjected to increased thermal loads. In the process of burning, the entire underhood space is strongly heated. So it is better not to allow unsuccessful attempts of burning at idle and do not forget to “walk” your car on the highway. Besides, you should not save on oil, you can change it more often. With a diesel particulate filter installed, it is necessary to use a lubricant with the correct tolerance Ford WSS-M2C950-A.
Turbocharger
Depending on the power, the engine is equipped with a turbocharger, equipped with a bypass flap, or having a variable geometry. In the first variant is Mitsubishi TD02H2, and in the second – Garrett GTD1244VZ. I think, you will not be surprised, if we say that on the engine 1.6 HDI similar solutions are used.
The actuators are vacuum driven. So it’s not surprising that vacuum can be lost due to a small crack in the tube. In this case, the error of incorrect boost pressure will pop up. There have also been situations when turbochargers quickly wear out, which leads to the extrusion of lubricant from the cartridge and its cold or hot part. But these are rare cases, which can appear only at a solid mileage.
Antifreeze Leak
At the back on the cylinder-head is located the thermostat housing. It is made of plastic, and, unfortunately, separately the thermostat is not on sale, however, its cost is quite democratic. The thermostat often begins to leak on the body, which is deformed due to overheating, so it will have to be replaced. It is better to buy a high-quality analog, but there are enough and not bad substitutes, put only on a new gasket.
Extremely rare, but you can face the appearance of cracks in the EGR cooler, because of which bubbles begin to appear in the cooling system. In addition to them, black foam will appear in the expansion tank. In the most neglected cases, antifreeze will begin to be fed into the intake, and this causes the appearance of hydrostroke, and, as a consequence, the death of the engine. So, if you notice foam – immediately change the EGR cooler.
Jets
Electromagnetic injectors from Bosch CRI 2.6 version (0445110488) are responsible for injection. And yes, the same ones are also on the 1.6 HDI. The injectors do not cause much headache, they are quite high quality, they last a long time, and they can be repaired.
TNVD
Here is used a single-plunger fuel injector from Bosch CP4S1 (0445010592). The pump was released in 2007 and at first it was considered not the best quality, there were problems with the plunger pusher roller, and the whole fuel system was quickly clogged with small chips. But by the moment of installation of this fuel injector on the engine under consideration today, all the problems were solved. Now the fuel injector serves faithfully and faithfully for more than one hundred thousand kilometers.
Valve cover
There is a diaphragm valve of the ECG system in the valve cover. It serves for the turbodiesel not to take oil from under the cover and crankcase, but simply utilizes the gases through the intake. And yes, surprisingly, they managed to make a pretty good diaphragm here that doesn’t cause any problems.
But still, if you hear air whistling from under the cap, or notice increased pressure under the cap, you need to lift the cap under the diaphragm, clean everything and put a new diaphragm if the old one is cracked.
But if the diaphragm deforms, then through the valve gas will come out in an increased volume, and, together with oil vapors.
Timing belt
Toothed belt should be changed after 150 thousand, or every 10 years. And here the timing drive in this motor is the most problematic.
On the cars that came off the assembly line in the period from December 2014 to May 2015 were put defective camshaft gears – they quickly cracked, because of which the pistons hit the valves. So the company’s executives had to conduct a recall campaign.
To change the belt, you will need clamps to stop the crankshaft and camshaft, as well as the tensioner. And note that there are no tags. History preserves many cases when incompetent mechanics used not special retainers, but anything, most often it was drills. Because of this, the error on the flow meter appeared. But that’s not all, not using a fixer can damage the bar under the idler pulley. This leads to the fact that it breaks off, falls under the belt because of which there is a jump.
There are cases of belt breakage, but usually it happens only with non-original belts, which approached the mileage of 100 thousand. In case of breakage, the impact falls on the valve rockers – they fly apart, but the valves are usually not bent.
In addition, non-original belt sets wear out the plastic cage of the tensioner very quickly.
The following models were affected by the Ford 16B42 service campaign (in 2015), during which the pulley was replaced:
- EcoSport from Jan. 20 through April 29;
- Fiesta from Oct. 6 through April 30;
- B-Max from December 12 through April 30;
- Focus and C-Mach from October 1 through April 30;
- Mondeo from January 18 to April 30;
- Transit/Tourneo Connect, two companies, the former from January 18 through April 30 and the latter from December 23 through March 26.
The gasket under the cylinder head
It is extremely rare, but it is possible to encounter a puncture of the cylinder-head gasket, but only on the most powerful varieties of this engine. This failure is accompanied by blowing gases into the cooling jacket.