[DaveS]

Collected our Ecosport 1.0 Titanium 3 weeks ago, 65 reg with 20k miles. Initial impressions are very good overall, but we had a breakdown within a week!

A vacuum pipe running behind the cylinder head (just inboard from the brake reservoir) had been rubbing against an aluminium air con pipe, and fretted until the pipe had a hole in it. This resulted in the engine running very rough with no power and the car was unable to do more than 20mph.

Strangely, there was no 'fault' light on the instrument pack.

All credit to the AA guy who tracked the fault down in no time and wrapped the hole with tape for a temporary repair (you left the reel of tape behind mate, by the wiper arm!). And also to Cramlington Ford for a speedy warranty replacement.

But I advise all 1.0 owners to have a close look to see if yours has done the same. It is difficult to see, being round the back of the engine.

We are looking forward to years of trouble free Ecosport driving from now on (fingers crossed).

 

[colinJYD]

A rather bad design by the looks of it, as A/C pipes are always the last bit of kit to get crammed into a car engine bay, and can snap due to vibration or get a leaking connection and lose or leak all A/C gasses.

As you say best to check if you have the 1.0 petrol engine (I have the 1.5 petrol engine but going to check mine out as well). Thanks for the heads up.

The one vacuum pipe you never want to fail is the one that powers the brake servo served from the engine block.

I had that on a really old Mazda 323 a few decades ago (an old runabout I bought when I was waiting for a new car).
It was spitting oil into the inner diameter of the vacuum pipe and it kept falling off due to the oils lubrication, resulting in instant 90% loss of braking power when the pipe fell off, resulting in no vacuum, and nearly smashed into the back of cars quite often. Even a jubilee clip would not keep the pipe on for long, and eventually when I got my new car I was waiting for, I just sent the Mazda to the scrapyard, as far to dangerous.

 

[DaveS]

Rubbing pipe - photo

It was definitely not a brake pipe, thankfully. The attached photo shows where the pipes were rubbing (looking in low from under the brake reservoir). The pipe that failed was probably not a vacuum pipe. It was one part of several pipes linking the charged air intake duct.
And the manufacturers must have come across this issue previously, because the replacement pipe had a protective sleeve over the region that had been rubbing.

 

[DaveS]

... oh, and here's what the pipe looked like when it was removed from the car.

 

[colinJYD]

Thats a real bad design to be able to rub that much material off.

Glad your sorted now, and all others with the 1.0 should check theirs.