No steering_wheel_angle for European Focus Mk2 (2010, post-facelift, Ghia 2.0 107kw)

[Jan Kučera]

Hi there,

I am not able to see the steering wheel angle data for a European Focus Mk2 Combi (2010, post-facelift, Ghia 2.0 107kw) - using official Ford Reference VI and Type 6 FW (vi-firmware-type6-FORDBOARD-ctv6.0.3-csv6.0-1-gb3f9b6b.bin) with Android v6.1.6 app. The dashboard is loaded with all the variables and all of them work (values change in time) except the steering angle which remains at 0.0 degrees even after starting up engine and turning the steering wheel left and right. However, the car was stationary when tested (speed = 0). May the steering angle be provided only when the car is moving? I doubt that...

The car has an electric steering booster instead of a hydraulic (which may be more common) - I have no idea whether ESP may be able to read the angle directly from the steering booster because I was told the tested car has no ususal "steering wheel angle sensor" on the steering wheel (I have no idea if that is true).

Any help is appreciated.

Regards,

Jan

[Jan Kučera]

Hi guys,

so I will do an "ask and answer yourself" again :). Just joking... I know the community is most likely very small still so the total experience is still very limited... time to bring few new facts.

So I confirm hereby that I was able to read steering wheel angle from an European Ford Focus Mk2, both on a pre-facelift (2004-2007) and an after facelift (2007- around 2010) vehicles. The vehicle needs to start moving and after few meters the steering angle starts to be provided in steps/increments of 1.5 degrees. So I am very happy to be able to find this out...

The fact that the angle remains zero before the vehicle starts moving confused me a bit because for instance on a European Ford Mondeo Mk3 (2001-2007) I am able to read a raw steering angle sensor CAN message just with an ignition turned ON without the engine running. If someone is interested in the Mondeo there are few notes here: http://www.electronicsworkshop.eu/FordMondeoCANhacking

On the Mondeo I can confirm that ID 0x80 is correct for SAS and also the 0x201 for gas pedal (I did not test more that that). The first two bytes of 0x80 are probably high/low parts of the final value and they seemed to change a bit finer than those 1.5 degrees on Focus...

Thats it for now.

Regards,

Jan

[Eric Marsman]

Hi Jan,

Glad you're figuring out your answers! I too am surprised that it doesn't report steering wheel angle until vehicle is in motion. I have not see that before. 

Since I am in US I will have trouble getting the European Focus to do much testing. 

Regards,

Eric

[Jan Kučera]

Hi there,

does anyone have experience with steering_wheel_angle values precision? The values provided on "Focus Classic" (European Mk2) with FW Type 6 are not really consistent... I tried again on a 2010 model and interestingly the value mask changes from ignition to ignition (meaning for first ride the values may have been 0, 1.39, 2.78 etc. and for the other they may be -1.0, 0.39, 1.78 etc), with steps of about 1.39 degrees - I did not log the values but the spacing did not seem to be constant somewhat so I suspect there must be some translation from raw can message to JSON... would be nice to see the code but we only have binaries :( I hope to crack the CAN id of the steering angle sensor to see the raw data. Hopefully the will be consistently incremented by 0.1 degrees like with the Mk3 Mondeo...

Any hits welcome! :)

Cheers,

Jan