I have a couple of issues which I hope are all related.
The car is a petrol Ford Focus 2000 1.8. Seems to be listed as LX, but the engine is Zetec.
When stationary, the idle is quite jumpy, and the car seems to rattle a little - likely because the idle is too low. It's improved slightly over the past couple of days (the pin now sticks around the 750RPM mark), but it's still not perfect.
Also, when driving, if I come up to a red light, disengage the clutch and brake, the revs go up to about 2000RPM, and then down to about 600, and are jumpy again. Twice today in this scenario, the car stalled and was unable to keep idling. When the idle is low, the dashboard lights also flicker a little.
There's also a fair amount of white smoke from the exhaust. I've only driven about 8 miles in one go since these problems have occured, and the outside temp has been no more than 4C, so it's possible that it's just steam?
The engine management light is on. I've checked the dashboard error codes, and it comes back with the low battery voltage error. I haven't yet had chance to check out the true engine error codes.
Any idea what the issue(s) could be here? :)
Edit: I've just had the battery tested and that came back perfectly fine. The tester was unable to read the engine management codes, but he was confident that there's a misfire which is causing the symptoms I'm having, but exactly what is causing the misfire would come up when reading the codes.
Edit 2: Okay, I've had the codes read and it came up with P0171 (System Too Lean(Bank 1)). I also had the coolant checked and they said that there wasn't any in there...this doesn't sound good...any advice at this point? :)
Final Edit: Well...the rough idle, stalling and P0171 problem has been fixed! There was a small vacuum leak which was tapped up. BUT, they also did a block test and pressure test at the same time. The pressure test came up fine, but the block test confirmed that there's a small leak from the head gasket. Quoted around £700 to fix, the cars value is around...oh...£700.
Thanks for your suggestions, all. If you're reading this with similar symptoms, I hope it's not the same result!