dieselgal

You should be able to turn it fairly easily in one direction if you poke a finger through the cooling slots in the casing. Be very careful if you use a screwdriver. If it's siezed then you'll see a lot of movement in the drive belt tensioner when the engine's idling. Mine was bad enough for the belt to contact the subframe. You'll need a special tool to get the old one off, search this forum for 'alternator pulley' for more details.

All sorted now. I got the pulley from German & Swedish, it's not listed on their website but I gave them the VW part No 022 903 119c (from this forum and a VW one) and they found it. OEM part from INA,

If it's a diesel and if it's juddering in the dry when you turn the wheel, especially at idle, it's probably the alternator pulley. Forget Fords, forget the TIS, they haven't heard of it, but it's a well known issue with VW engines. Check out this thread http://www.fordgalaxy.org.uk/ford/index.php?showtopic=11428

Wow! Such a lot of useful info here. I've got all the same noises, vibrations and excess tensioner movement and the alternator pulley's locked solid. Now it did used to freewheel before as I checked some of this out a few months ago when the 'alternator workshop' warning came up briefly. But the car had stood for a couple of weeks then it started to behave again so I forgot all about it until the steering vibration started this week. So I might be interested in Adam's Sealy tool as I'm not far away, I'll PM you on this. The alternator p/n is 028 903 030, Littledaz is there any chance you could check out the p/n for the pulley? Car has the ASZ engine. Mick

Had mine booked in 6 weeks ago, dealer cancelled the appointment because 'they were waiting for the parts'. They now say that Ford's can't tell them when they'll be available so I phoned Ford customer so-called-service. They were very nice and explained very politely that many other people were in the same position and that there was nothing they could do and the dealer probably had more information on parts availability than they did! Oh, and if it breaks down when I'm on holiday in France in a couple of weeks I should get it repaired over there and Ford GB will "consider contributing towards the cost" What use is that? OK, so at the beginning of September (four months after getting the recall notice) it went in for what Lifestyle Ford @ Redhill said should only take one day. Of course it took two days and when I got it home found the following; 1. O/S driveshaft gaitor torn and spraying grease everywhere! 2. Plastic battery tray split and one fixing bolt missing. 3. Cables and hoses not clipped back in place. 4. They went to the trouble of resetting the radio presets but couldn't be bothered with the clock! 5. Clutch hydraulic pipe leaking at the slave cylinder connection. 6. Bolts missing from the engine undertray. 7. N/S wing and bumper scratched where they dropped the engine support bracket. 8. Sound unsulation pads missing from the ends of the bulkhead extension. So I called a friend who works for Ford, and eventually I was asked to bring the car to Lifestyle's Horsham branch where it was inspected and my observations found to be correct. They arranged to get the parts in and carried out the rectification work a week later. They did say it would take two days because of the paint job but it actually took three, they said they found an internal leak in the steering rack which Fords very kindly agreed to replace FOC. So it turned out OK in the end but loads of hassle and what chance would I have had if I didn't have that friend who works for Ford?

Had mine booked in 6 weeks ago, dealer cancelled the appointment because 'they were waiting for the parts'. They now say that Ford's can't tell them when they'll be available so I phoned Ford customer so-called-service. They were very nice and explained very politely that many other people were in the same position and that there was nothing they could do and the dealer probably had more information on parts availability than they did! Oh, and if it breaks down when I'm on holiday in France in a couple of weeks I should get it repaired over there and Ford GB will "consider contributing towards the cost" What use is that?

Charges depend on the route, I don't think we're paying extra for Dover-Calais this year but we certainly did on Portsmouth-LeHavre last year, and whilst we were queueing for the check-in we were told that if we hadn't already booked them we'have to take them off! So you must tell them when you book in case they're allocating space on low height car decks. We carry ours on the top, they're more solidly fixed, you can still access the tailgate and don't add to the width of the car. On the other hand, it is quite a long way to lift them up there and you'll want to watch those low underpasses on the way out of LeHavre! Mick