ford focus (oldshape) should I?

Right, how much do you reckon?

http://www.gordonsford.co.uk/used-cars.aspx?st=Vehicle&vhl=601178680&ctr=1944446

Its how you drive them and how you stay off the brake pedal

Rare words of wishom from the Horemeister! 🙂

or for proving your manliness off the lights

Oh, I dunno. I find it easier to launch the Focus than the 2 diesels I’ve driven recently, which require a lot more skill to balance the tourque laden wheelspin and the turbo lag!
If you’re on the ball it’s very satisfying to beat ‘faster’ cars. ‘Speshly with passengers and the bike rack on the back….. Err….Ummmm…. Not that I would, you understand. No. Never.

I tend to lift off sooner before bends or use the gears better and drive smoother for progress. Same with the motorway- anticipate the rapid lane jumpers etc. Plus brake pads and discs are expensive. My old Forester was soooooo slow and expensive for discs that I never used the brakes much 🙂

Yes but why have a slow, noisy, fuel guzzling 1.6 when you can have a more nippy more efficient, quieter 2.0?

My 2.0D Mondeo is noticeably noisier around town than the 1.6 Focus is – I really noticed it last week when I drove our Focus for the first time in a while. The Mondeo is less noisy on the motorway though.

And it’s not slow, it’s just not boyracer. I’ve never found the ‘lack’ of power to be an issue in overtaking or anything else that matters unless you think you’re racing.

I dont need a huge car. The majority of the time its just me in it. If Im brutally honest I’d prefer a MX5 but that wouldn’t go down too well 😆

Mk3 MX5 has isofix with air bag switch on passenger side (therfore baby friendly) if that helps the discussions?

Yes but why have a slow, noisy, fuel guzzling 1.6

The petrol WILL be quiter.
All cars go the same speed in traffic. Unless you’re doing 12000+ miles a year, you’ll never make a diesel pay.

And let’s compare like for like: If I stick a turbo on a 2 lite petrol engine, which is faster then please? You need to compare it to the 1.6 110bhp diesel, which I’ve driven back to back with ours, and there’s precious little difference there!

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Hora, that looks a bit rich to me, and it’s a low specced one

PP – I know. I’ve left it with them. The price is also above Glasses which I pointed out.

Let’s take £700 off that price, and up the spec….

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201049374962786/sort/priceasc/usedcars/price-to/4000/engine-size-cars/1-4l_to_1-6l/price-from/2000/body-type/hatchback/transmission/manual/fuel-type/petrol/maximum-mileage/up_to_60000_miles/model/focus/make/ford/radius/1500/postcode/gu148ex/keywords/2004%20zetec/page/1?logcode=p

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201045372985199/sort/priceasc/usedcars/price-to/4000/engine-size-cars/1-4l_to_1-6l/price-from/2000/body-type/hatchback/transmission/manual/fuel-type/petrol/maximum-mileage/up_to_60000_miles/model/focus/make/ford/keywords/2004%20zetec/page/1/radius/1500/postcode/gu148ex?logcode=p

Or you can have a Ghia for a tad more

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201049374869611/sort/priceasc/usedcars/price-to/4000/price-from/2000/maximum-mileage/up_to_60000_miles/fuel-type/petrol/transmission/manual/engine-size-cars/1-4l_to_1-6l/body-type/hatchback/model/focus/make/ford/keywords/2004%20ghia/page/1/postcode/gu148ex/radius/1500?logcode=p

Peter I’m not comparing engines, I’m comparing price. You can buy a more powerful, quiter, more efficient car for the same or less money so why would you buy the less powerful car? Of course this excludes stying, size etc criteria if that is important to you.

My 1.6 115 only used to do high 20’s/low 30’s around town where as the 2.0d does 50mpg. Admitedly in town driving the 2.0d is more noisey but on open road the Mondeo is just so much more refined.

The thing with any car, I think, is to decide what you want, narrow it down to a couple of models/specs then get looking for a few weeks.

We lookd at about 10 Focussessssss (Foci?) when we bought ours, all estates. I really wanted a Ghia for the cruise control, but a lot of the ones we saw were sheds
You really wouldn’t believe what some people try and sell. I had one salesman speachless when I asked if the deep gouges in the rear bumper would be repaired. He said they’d probably had a dog. I said “What? A warewolf?”

You can buy a more powerful, quiter, more efficient car for the same or less money so why would you buy the less powerful car?

Becasue you CANNOT do all those things. The petrol REALLY IS QUIETER. And usually cheaper. And nicer to drive. I’d buy (I did!) a slower petrol over a faster diesel just because I prefer them.
And you HAVE to compare like for like with spec/power, sorry.

Focusses are useless – the rear light cluster is made out of tin foil and crepe paper and when you close the boot down on it hard they shatter into a million tiny pieces

😉

PP I know but miles from me plus I want comeback if something goes wrong – a closer drive 😉

Pook, made of cheese those rear lights 😉

Hmm, I’d rate the Mk1 focus very highly. Helped mum choose one second hand about 5 years ago and it hasn’t put a foot wrong. Its a 1.6 Ghia hatch and it handles really well. Ok the 1.6 isn’t going to set the world on fire and it lacks power a bit on the hills when fully loaded up, but work the gears a b it and it can keep a decent pace.
Nice solid build and feel to it too. .
Plus they’re pretty common so getting spares etc isn’t going to be tricky.
I’d have one.

Right, how much do you reckon?

http://www.gordonsford.co.uk/used-cars.aspx?st=Vehicle&vhl=601178680&ctr=1944446

No more than £3k.

Im willing to go to the extra £200 due to its one owner/full history/unmolested and the 12months main dealer warranty (unusual). Not a penny more though.

Well the red ones a no-go. They seem to think its worth 300 over the top trade book value and compared it to alloyed-metallic higherspecs.

Well the red ones a no-go. They seem to think its worth 300 over the top trade book value and compared it to alloyed-metallic higherspecs. I’m not paying 3500.ass 🙁

“Get a mondeo” is good advice from Funkydunc, Foci seem to carry a bit of a price premium. I had to go smaller since a Mondeo wouldn’t fit on my drive but that was the only advantage of the Focus. Mondeos are uncool but they make sense. It was pretty irritating seeing how many more there were in my pricerange and how much more you could get for the money.

I’ve got 04 1.6 petrol Focus, it’s been pretty reliable till this month when it had to have a new water pump, thermostat housing and alternator belt.

It’s no race machine and pretty boring to drive but it gets me from A to B fine.

Hmm PeterPoddy …I’m not clear how spending £2.5k on a Ford makes my suggestion of buying a potentially more reliable car for less than half that ‘utter rubbish’, but hey-ho! if that’s what you think. I suspect you were in an Autotrader searching frenzy and misread what I wrote?

I was actually going to suggest a Civic – say a 1.4 with c100k miles for about £800.

Comme ca

So, Hora, in reply to your question: it seems that you might want to buy quickly once the Toyota’s gone and of course it’s up to you, but I wouldn’t spend £3k on a car if I could spend <£1k and put the rest into an appreciating asset, ie. my house.

Sounds odd but I like the design of the old focus and I think the mondeos door cards are horrificly plasticated.

On that civic, part history, 100kmiles and HOW MUCH!

Good cars Hora, you’ll not go far wrong with one if driven sensibly.
I wasnt keen on our Mondeo at first, but of the cars we’ve had over the last few years, this one has just quietly & reliably gone about its business without any fuss. I love the rattly old thing now. We picked it over our £8k Galaxy for a 450 mile trip to a party last summer, its so comfy. 49mpg!!
And it swallows a bike with its wheels on. 🙂

hora – Member

“Sounds odd but I like the design of the old focus”

Mine looks like an upturned skip with wheels on Slightly too small wheels at that so it always looks like someone put a size 12 body on a size 10 chassis. I do like the Mk2 though, good muscular lines on it for a family car.

As for design I have some issues with that, frinstance, the clutch master cylinder has a nonreplacable plastic pushrod which is a common failure point, and requires the whole m/c to be replaced if (when) it snaps. And to replace this cheap part you need to remove the entire steering column, and then grow an extra pair of wrists so you can get to the springloaded hose connectors on the back of it. So for a breakage of a 10p part you face several hundred pounds of garage and parts bill, and most people couldn’t DIY it. Now that’s annoying. Even I can take a 2 minute look at it and see how the design could be changed to avoid all that.

But stuff like this does annoy me disproportionately so maybe I’m being unfair. It doesn’t put me off the car though.

We just sold our ’02 5 door 1.8 tdi zetec
(not the tdci – apparently up to a certain age a particular engine part on the tdci’s can be a bit dodgy, or so we were told)

we had it just over a year and only regretfully sold it only because we’ve moved overseas. Cheap and reliable to run, was great to drive, really good mpg, and it bloody shifted on the motorway! we’d definitely get another if/when were back in UK.

Dxb what mileage was yours and you other stw’ers? I was restricting myself to <60k for ‘reliability fears’

Ours was about 70K+ miles when we got it, and about 80K when we sold it.
Daily commute from manc to chorley clocked up the miles. Ours was really tidy and had been serviced regularly when we got it, it had done more miles than we wanted, but ended up spot on for us.

On that civic, part history, 100kmiles and HOW MUCH!

Erm, I think he wants £800 but that’s negotiable within reason?

Seems like you’ve already settled on a Focus, so if you’re happy then go ahead. I was merely trying to check your enthusiasm for what I see as an overpriced Ford and help you have a lovelier kitchen.

Good luck.

Money isn’t an issue. I’m just sick of googling the next major problem and spending my holiday entitlement and time dealing with specialist garages.

There are better things to do than spend your holiday entitlement fixing something isnt there?

In addition I want to be able to dump my car ANYWHERE and not worry all the time about other drivers dinging it. I’ve always yearned for that.

I actually look at my mates battered 04 Clio with envy. He really doesn’t give a toss.

I’ve got an 04 1.6 5dr Focus, and think it is great. The ride and handling are great, the engine is pretty economical (45mpg in summmer, mostly motorway), it is refined, everything works as it should, and I think it looks nice. There is nothing wrong with the 1.6 engine, at all.
I spend most days at work driving very expensive and powerful cars, and I really enjoy getting back into my Focus at the end of each day (maybe that makes me an old git but it’s true!)

I’d say go for it.

What are the issues with the 1.8TDCI and how do you spot them? As mentioned above a poster mentioned that thing that goes wrong?

I’d rather have a 1.6 petrol engine than the 1.7tdi (110bhp 200ft/lb) I have in my company car. Didn’t get a choice though. And even though my car is the “Eco” version I don’t get more than 44mpg with m62/town driving. 🙁
My 1.6vvti Corolla got 39mpg with the same driving and drove a whole load better.

Our 06 1.8tdci has been fine, done 45K in it now, biggest problem is other drivers as no one stops anymore when they’ve driven down the side of someone else’s car and knocked the door mirrors off.
On a good run it’ll happily get over 60mpg, currently getting about 55 average.

What are the issues with the 1.8TDCI and how do you spot them

Prob ….Duel mass flywheels. but that is the same on any modern diesel ,Toyota and Bmw have major problems with these as well.

Tell tell sighns are a rattle when on idle sounds like a marble in a biscuit tin when bad and you can feel it through the cluch pedal a vibration.

Our 06 1.8tdci has been fine

I thought they were 1.6tdci 05 onwards…?

clubber – Member

1.6 will be totally gutless,

LOL – the kind of thing written by people who think they’d have been an F1 driver if only someone had spotted their talent. It’s a car for getting around in. 1.6 is perfectly adequate for that purpose though maybe not as an ego-chariot or for proving your manliness off the lights

Erm, no – the kind of thing written by people who hate under powered cars. Small engined petrol cars are easy to damage if you have to thrash them. It’s all well and good talking about driving them properly, but they are found wanting if you need to get out of trouble.

I much prefer diesels anyway due to the available torque – would always have one in anything up to 200bhp.

I’m no boy racer as I drive a 5mtr long, 2tonne, 4×4 – it is chipped to 170bhp & 400Nm of torque though. 😀

I have had a 52 plate 1.6 estate for the last 3 years. Over the last 35000 thousand miles it has been comfortable, reliable and reasonably economical. It has coped well lugging 5 people and loads of stuff. It isn’t posh or overly quick but it gets the job done. I have never struggled with the supposed lack of power and can easily keep up with the flow of traffic. Servicing and things like tyres are cheap. Don’t get me wrong. It would be nice to get a posher and quicker car but unless something dramatic changes I am going to be unlikely to get rid of it.

I have an 02 TDCI and its ok, its a bit underequipped for my liking, however the 04 model equivalent (zetec) is much better specced.

I drove a mk2 1.6 petrol and a mk1 petrol and i’m sure there’s enough power, its just that the delivery is very different. On paper they produce the same numbers, but for overtaking the diesel seems loads better, but its probably all relativity or something like that

I’ve had a V reg (one of the first foci) for about 3 or 4 years now, petrol 1.8 that’s clicked past 150thou miles and it’s been great, I’m going to run it into the ground as a sag wagon for the famille Hornby cos I don’t need a flash motor (I bike commute so don’t do a lot of miles) so for stuff like bikes in the back or building rubble it’s been fine. good space in the back with the seats down (5 door FTW) and I trust it enough with the 3 week old first born daughter in the back

the 1.6 would be fine, lets face it, who really screws an engine like some wannabe jason plato nowadays, the roads are all 30mph speed limits and cameras and traffic volume