I know that the 1.6TDCI has a problem with the intercooler turbo pipe and that Ford have redesigned the pipe so that the pipe will no longer crack.

But is there a TSB that I could quote to my Ford garage to get this changed? Before warranty ran out I asked them about the evidence of a leak on the intercooler pipe and they said it was from the crank case breather pipe above and it was fine. This would be the same time that they said that my top mounts were fine and that they had lubricated them and they would be OK. They are not, they still graon when parking etc

Mine has the smallest leak and it does not effect the running of the car at all, but leaks tend to get bigger

If Ford won't fix this I will do it myself if part not too expensive!

has anyone got a photo of this pipe, that they would be willing to post? So a numbnuts like me knows what to look for on mine

I have just replaced the steel pipe from the turbo to intercooler as it had a large crack around the weld on the engine bracket. Before I found the problem I was suffering bad acceleration around 1700 rpm and lots of black smoke from the exhaust under hard acceleration.

I eventually found the problem by jamming the throttle pedal to give me 3000rpm and then checked for leaks on the pipe to intercooler. I found that there was a massive escape of air from a crack in the pipe.

After renewing the pipe I was amazed how quick the car was, I probably had the problem from buying the car and it just got worse, the problem of the black smoke was also cured and now the acceleration is great.

I've seen this on all 3 c-maxes we have owned and had them replaced . I also noticed better performance and an increase in mpg. It's a design flaw which has been fixed in the replacement part. From memory the part was around £60 plus fitting, but looks 10 minute job to fit.

I have looked at replacing ours as there is evidence that it is leaking.

But I did the test mentioned above where I jammed the throttle at 3000 rpm to test for leaks and there were none!

As for performance & MPG, both are as expected. In fact MPG is superb as coming back from France at 130KPH for 270 miles fully loaded we managed 53MPG And that was not relying on the trip computer as we do not have one on our LX