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I have a 2006 Ford Mondeo that recently had a problem with the RH side indicator lights staying on all the time.

The Ford service centre and a auto electrician could find no fault and the problem corrected itself in the process.

The Ford service centre floated the idea of the Body Control Unit having a possible fault and suggested replacement if required, was neither simple or cheap.

I can imagine the BCM unit might not be cheap but I can't see why transferring data should potentially add considerably to the cost.

Your thoughts?

Stewart

From the "Ask Jack" archives - 11 March 2011

I made contact with one of our AA Approved Auto Electrical Repairers to pick his brains on this problem.

The Body Control Module does in fact store a lot of information and controls functions such as lights, central locking, security systems, electric windows etc.

If the BCM needs to be changed there is a lot of information which needs to be coded back into the unit to make it compatible with your vehicle.

My contact was not surprised if the BCM did need to be changed, they say the Mondeo has always suffered from electronic / electrical issues. While they have improved over the years they are apparently still not perfect.

They did suggest you make contact with another auto electrician in your area and ask them to check and if possible, confirm the problem is the BCM. Sometimes a clever auto sparky can ‘fool’ the system and make a modification to fix the problem.

They also asked if any recent work had been done on the cars alarm system as this often can create problems with the on-board electronic systems.