[Phil Doggo]

Wow, that's a lot of work - I'm impressed

Wheels look loads better, as do the wing mirror indicators. It's horrible when stuff goes milky like that!

 

[smartguy69]

Having lost the engine in my last car due to a faulty spark plug, I now change the plugs every 2years irrespective of the mileage driven.

Ouch, I have had diesels for so many years I had forgotten about the damage a spark plug can do if it breaks up. I best get the ones done on the wife's mokka.

 

[Martin1977]

Ouch, I have had diesels for so many years I had forgotten about the damage a spark plug can do if it breaks up. I best get the ones done on the wife's mokka.

I was running a set of BOSCH Super 4's in my little vitara (a magnificent little permanent 4WD).. the special 4x prong tip came loose and went into the engine.... one ruined piston and liner later.. the car was effectively scrap!

I wont be doing that again!

 

[Stevros3]

Now you've had your Kuga for a while and got it set up a lot closer to how you want it, how are you finding it compared to the other cars you've had in the past?

How long are you planning on keeping this one?

 

[Martin1977]

Now you've had your Kuga for a while and got it set up a lot closer to how you want it, how are you finding it compared to the other cars you've had in the past?

How long are you planning on keeping this one?

Now THATS a good question.... how do I find it??

The good bits- the car is VERY reliable, it’s been maintained to within an inch of its life and its had all normal age related components replaced over my 2.5yrs of ownership.
Its quick, very quick.. enough to make overtaking easy and scare some more illustrious marques..
It doesn’t get stuck in snow up to 2ft deep with its winter boots on.
There are tons of parts and knowledge easily and cheaply available via the ST/RS owners forums.

The less good bits- £520 tax isn’t fun, any petrol large capacity car has this unfortunately!. The car is now nearing 10yrs old. I’m only on 31K miles, but the age thing won’t go away or improve.
To buy something newer with the same comfort and abilities will be big ££££.
MPG at best will be 32mpg. Worst 22mpg.

Final bad point- it’s not a truck!! I’m desperate to get another Amarok... (the V6 one)
maybe March / April, I’ll take the plunge. Sell this, probably dirt cheap and buy the VW!

 

[Stevros3]

Think you'll find a few on this forum wanting to take it off your hands, given the care and attention it's had, plus the improvements you've made.

 

[Martin1977]

Think you'll find a few on this forum wanting to take it off your hands, given the care and attention it's had, plus the improvements you've made.

Well, we’ll see. Nice of you to say.
Thing to remember is that any older car is always going to have little bits needing done, it’s staying on top of them and doing it right that counts.

 

[Stevros3]

I know that feeling, my main project car is a 1990 Mini, had it over 10 years and it's had a fair bit of skin off my knuckles now but there's not many parts on it I don't know.

 

[Martin1977]

A morning like this means that there’s some important business to be attended to.
😇

 

[Phil Doggo]

Yes 🥶😃
❄❄❄❄❄

 

[murcod]

I'd be staying in bed if it looked like that outside!

It was 36 C here today. Unfortunately getting even warmer over the next couple of days.

 

[Martin1977]

Latest update folks and this time a real PITA problem to solve….

Went out to the car at the weekend and noticed that the windows were heavy with condensation on the inside… Passenger floor (front and rear) very wet… Frozen solid due to the cold, but wet nonetheless!.



With the sub zero temperatures my immediate thought was to a burst pipe… Heater matrix or similar..?? However after an hour or so hunting around.. no leaks to report. Only thing for it was trial and error of the next ‘most likely’ leak point..

The master stroke was checking the boot which was also very wet.. on the basis that water doesn’t flow uphill.. my guess was that the boot was letting in water (somewhere) and as my car drove out of the driveway (downhill), the water on the boot floor would flow into the footwells…

I’d then thought about what I’d been doing and what had changed on the kuga over the past month… the ONLY thing I could come up with was that I’d been using bikes via a rack on the roof bars… My car has had roof rails since new…

As a bike is mounted vertically on its rack, when you drive and go around corners, you create quite a lot of stress and bending moments where the roof bars joins into the car…. That was my logic anyway and gave me a start for which leak point to investigate.. trial and error remember!!!

Having stripped the boot interior out, I found the point where water was getting in, or dripping through, here

The plastic (silver) cover on the roof bars gently prises up… I warmed this slightly via a heat gun before I started to avoid the plastic being either brittle due to cold or age. Once removed, its simply 2(of) 10mm bolts to free the roof bar mounts…. Everything looked okay.. until you look REAL close…

The hole where the bolt mounts and passes through the roof is a slightly raised weld point.. this raised section is to stop water getting in! If you look close, you can se that a little bit of the raised section has broken away.. its only about 2mm long but that’s MORE than enough to let water in…

A good dry up with the heat gun and a generous application of clear silicone had this back together in 10mins…

I then left the car in the garage for 2x days with the gas heaters on to both help cure the silicone, also to help dry out the floor..
This can only just have happened as any condensation is immediately and clearly obvious.. If you do have a leak, work methodically and you'll manage to sort it.

The toughest part for me has been the temperatures.. too cold to run the hose, too cold to have the car thaw the ice and expose the hole.. too cold to dry the floor out and silicone cure!!

Very pleased to say that she’s all back together and bone dry after yesterdays rains. I'll have the carpets fully shampooed in the spring as a matter of course.

 

[Happyarry]

Love the step-by-step way you took us through the diagnosis and the cure, the details are understandable where the roof
rack has the weight top heavy when cornering (something you would not have thought of).
Great report Martin

 

[Stevros3]

Roof rack trim was a place (not the only one) mine leaked when I first got it. And was certainly the most awkward to sort. Glad you got it sorted!

 

[Martin1977]

Unfortunately my ‘fix’ above didn’t work… I left the car outside overnight to check the repair had worked and there’s still a tiny drip getting into the rear compartment .

Not only would this lead to longer term damage of the cars carpet / upholstery / wiring connections.. it would drive me UP THE FOOKIN WALL….



Rather then post up the numerous things that I’d tried and failed to fix this.. (Neoprene gaskets.. RTV sealant.. silicone…Strong threatening words about being sold or burned out for insurance purposes..etc)

None worked 100%.



So… THE FIX.

I cleaned up and removed what I thought was a ‘weld point’.. (it isn’t), instead it appears to be a small hard fibrous gasket that’s been glued and then painted in place at the factory. This gives the slightly raised area that the bolt penetrates through and stops water (via gravity) from leaking into the back compartment.

It easily breaks away when cracked..

Once removed, you have a small round footing as can be seen here.

I then set about finding a hard plastic / nylon stand off that could replicate what the factory had glued in… A stand ff is really just a thick spacer or washer if you like..

This stand off needs to have a centre hole large enough to accommodate the roof rack bolt, yet a small enough ‘outer’ diameter to fit into the recess on the roof rack itself. Last thing you need is a profile (thickness) of stand off that won’t cause the roof rack to stick off of the roof..!

After much trial and error, the size you need is an M6 hole, 10mm outer diameter, 5mm thickness. I bought a load of different sizes / thicknesses and found this worked the best.. In fact it was the ONLY one that worked. (eBay is your friend here).



I then cantered the stand off in position using the roof rack and its bolt as a guide, gluing it in place via Contact cement . This type of glue works on ‘pressure’ so I tightened up the bolt by using some of the Stand off’s friends to help squeeze it down. Check (once glued) that it all fits together nicely.

The edges of the stand off were then siliconed liberally in place. Let it dry 100% before you attempt to bolt up and attach the roof rack. I let a fair bit of water run around this to double check before buttoning everything back up… so far so good!

 

[Stevros3]

Glad you got it sorted!

 

[Les]

Well done, glad it’s sorted now. It drives you mad doesn’t it.

 

[smartguy69]

Excellent fix @Martin1977. This looks to be a poor design by Ford. I have never needed to take mine off but I assume that threaded hole goes all they way into the car. Never a good idea to have a hole in the roof, it should have been a blind hole.

 

[Martin1977]

Well done, glad it’s sorted now. It drives you mad doesn’t it.

it sure does... of all the minor things that can bug the life out of you, this has to be up there!!!
time will tell if this is finally 'fixed'... the nut (like @smartguy69 says) IS a blind hole. I actually thought the water was leaking down a hairline space at the side of the blind hole / roof???
@Stevros3 gave me some brilliant pointers on this as he'd tackled a similar issue previously.

If I go out this morning and theres a HINT of water ingress... it wont end well!!!

 

[Martin1977]

With a couple of spare hours, I decided to try my new plugs…..
Now before everyone gets all upitty and snowflakey and starts sending complaint to the Admins, SPARK PLUGS… The RS focus items Id bought a month or two ago.!!!

We’re now above freezing outside, a monstrous 4 degrees C and I’ve excavated some space in the garage so today was the day.



This is an easy job on the 2.5T.. remove the air crossover (2x jublee clips on a 7mm socket) and the two retaining bolts which are 10mm and the crossover is out. Next up is the spark plug cover which is held in place by some torx screws and washers. 10mins in, all plugs and coil packs exposed.

I always start at the LHS for no reason other than habit, I do one plug at a time to save screwing up any electrical connections by mixing them up. Granted that’s tough to do nowadays but in days of yore when you took a couple of connections off of a distributor, it was painful to get the firing order correct afterwards.

One plug out, one in.. 12NM is what these are re-torqued at. A tin smear of copper slip also never hurts.

This is the first plug to come out, what's immediately clear is that the standard plug has been running too ‘hot’.. see that white on the electrode near the tip.. well, it shouldn’t have that. It’ll contribute to Det and result in poor efficiency. The remap, intercooler, induction kit will all play a part in this too.

The new RS items are a stage colder so are far better suited to the job, I’ll inspect them after a couple of thousand miles to see how things are doing.



Repeat the above and after 35mins, all old plugs out.. another 10mins has everything back together.

On driving the car it immediately feels crisper, and smoother. Pick up is great as is the urgency / flexibility in the engine. Overall, well worth the £40 for the new plugs. If you ever need to buy these, you need to make sure that you get the proper RS items, the parts are sometimes interchanged by dealers with the ST items as they assume they are interchangeable (on a standard car they are.. on a re-mapped car however, they aren't).
Lesson being, order via part number , not by description.