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  • Ford Smax Petrol or Diesel for long term ownership and which engine?
  • renton
    Free Member

    Hi all,

    We are looking at bying a ford smax to keep for the next 5-7 years.

    Which do you think would be the better engine to go for and why?

    petrol or diesel?

    petrol isnt as good on mpg but the cars are cheaper and you get a lower mileage used car for your money

    Diesel have lots of torque and good mpg but no doubt will suffer with the dreaded dpf and dual mass flywheel at some point in its life?

    we currently do around 10k miles a year, some town stuff and some motorway stuff. But due to my job this could increase or decrease dependent on where I am in the country.

    We have settled on titanium trim (or maybe Ti x).

    If we were go for petrol which isthe best all round engine ?? The 203 or 240bhp model?

    Likewise diesel ? 140,163 or 200bhp?

    Bearing in mind I would eventually get it remapped to improve the mpg and performance a bit.

    What do you think ??

    cheers

    Steve

    xiphon
    Free Member

    5-7 years is considered “long term ownership” ?

    Blimey!

    If you’re planning on remapping it later, start off with the highest BHP…

    renton
    Free Member

    5-7 years is considered “long term ownership” ?

    Blimey!

    If you’re planning on remapping it later, start off with the highest BHP…

    is that not long temr then ??

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    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    I’ve a petrol C-max (100bhp 1.6) and it’s been fine. Like you say 10k isn’t a lot of miles and I prefer knowing it’ll cost me ~£6 more each fill up than diesel (well, fill up 10% more often anyway, equivelent to not getting a petrol station bag of sweets and a magazine) than trying to offset that in my head against a future bill (which would be enough to ruin the month).

    But I’m guessing those 200bhp engines are a fair bit bigger and thirstier than my 1.6!

    xiphon
    Free Member

    To me, long term is 10+ years.

    renton
    Free Member

    yup a combined mpg of 34.9 mpg !!

    theflatboy
    Free Member

    We have a 2.0TDI 165bhp Titanium. It’s very nice, obviously it’s massive which is useful for us, but it’s also very nice to drive long or short distances. Coming back from the North on Sunday with it loaded down with people and stuff it was doing around 40mpg, so not incredible but not awful. Good car.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    yup a combined mpg of 34.9 mpg !!

    It’ll be optimistic, think the combined on the C-max is 39, it does 42 on the motorway doing an indicated 70 (it should be 51 according to Ford!). The way I drive (look ahead and brake late/never so it’s spending a lot of time idling in gear so the ECU stops the fuel) it actualy does 38 on A/B roads which isn’t bad, and good for my sanity as I’d rather avoid the dullness of motorways and the shorter more direct route saves petrol!

    lodious
    Free Member

    I went from 2.5T mondeo (c.28mpg) to 2.2 TDCI Smax (c.38mpg). I preferred the 2.5T to drive, and it was a lot cheaper to buy than the 2.2 TDCI, so I was really happy with it. 2.2 is OK though, I’m starting to like it.

    The petrol Smax’s (Ecoboost) are thirsty, and personally, i’d avoid, because, as you pointed out, if your job changes, you might have to sell it, and that is expensive.

    Personally, if I were you, I’d go for the 163…the 2.2. is nice, but it’s never goanna be a sports car, so save some dosh and get the 163.

    One thing to consider is that the Mondeo 2.5T has better fuel economy than the Focus ST, even though they have the same power output (dunno about the Smax?) so the 2.5T might not be as bad as people think. Really nice engines though.

    renton
    Free Member

    lodious…

    I test drove a 2.5t smax and found it a bit underwhelming compared to my mazda 6 2.2 diesel with 180bhp.

    I reset the average on the test drice and it was reading 29mpg and to be fair I had been booting it a bit.

    It didnt feel as fast but when you looked down at the speedo it was knocking on the door of 85mph on the mway

    Lovely and smooth around town though.

    If I could guarantee that I was only going to do the 10k a year I would have one in a heart beat.

    apparently the 2.0 ecoboost is better on fuel than the 2.5t??

    geordiemick00
    Free Member

    My next door neighbour works for Ford Motor Company and gets a new S Maz every four months. The one to go for is the 163 2.0Tcdi which can be pumped up to 185bhp for about £100. the 2.2tdci is grunty but expensive, the petrols are just poor efforts in Co2 exercises to get a car in the range with low tax. In the real world they’ll need working hard and MPG will suffer.

    lodious
    Free Member

    2.0 ecoboost is better on fuel than the 2.5t

    OK fair enough, some of the reports on SMOC were not good, but I didn’t read about it in detail. Your right the 2.5T does not feel that fast, as it’s lovely and smooth…very understated to drive.

    lodious
    Free Member
    renton
    Free Member

    Thanks for the replies.

    We are on the hunt now for a nice 2010 onwards Smax 2.0 ecoboost titanium or titanium x.

    Ive seen a few on autotrader but they seem to be priced a bit higher than what the book price for a private sale is.

    For instance there is a 10 plate titanium x with 29k on the clock with a few extras, its up for 15500 but book price for private is around 14000

    Ive never really haggled before so how would you go about it??

    Would you buy from a private seller if you were spending around 15k?

    Cheers

    Steve

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

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