Seconded. As I said in another thread. SWMBO's 2002 Focus TDCI has covered 152k from new, with the only failure being the CD player, which was replaced under warranty. Interior is still in mint condition, with no squeaks or rattles, and the engine/gearbox haven't missed a beat. It still feels tight and nimble to drive, with none of the sloppiness you'd expect of a high-mileage car.
Seconded. As I said in another thread. SWMBO's 2002 Focus TDCI has covered 152k from new, with the only failure being the CD player, which was replaced under warranty. Interior is still in mint condition, with no squeaks or rattles, and the engine/gearbox haven't missed a beat. It still feels tight and nimble to drive, with none of the sloppiness you'd expect of a high-mileage car.
Despite how it may feel, a new set of dampers all around will totally transform the handling and ride, -they stil feel fine when infact the dampers are past their best.
Hi. I'm the original poster. By all accounts the Focus seems great! And good value too.
However I will do most of the miles on my own. So I figured the Focus is bigger than I strictly need.
If I spent the same £4,500 on a smaller car then maybe I would get a newer or higher spec smaller car than spending £4,500 on a Focus.
The market does not always work like that because maybe all the decent smaller cars are rarely available and are in high demand. Or the Focus is very readily available. Maybe the price difference is small?
That's why I thought I would start with getting a few recommendations for a smaller car and then pricing them up.
Must admit that if there was no difference I would much rather have the Focus.
You should be able to get an Ibiza TDi sport 130 for about that on above average miles. They're great cars, but the trim doesn't wear that well IMO. Bloody hard ride as well.
For me the fact that you spend half your mileage (time?) on 140 mile motorway trips was enough to swing it to the bigger car. They are generally much more comfortable and capable on the motorway than a small car. If you are rarely on a motorway (at motorway speeds) then the smaller car is fine.
They are not *that* big, particularly WRT the boot.
Yes,you would probably get a newer, smaller car for the same money. Yes, you would probably get a higher spec smaller car for the money. Would you get a
*better* car for the money? No, not IMHO.
You also mentioned must be cheap to run, and needs to be reliable in your OP...
You need to look at the total cost of ownership. The original purchase price is often a fairly insignificant proportion of this.
I thought the Focus was a reliable car but at Honest John there is a long section on WHAT'S GOOD and that's great. But it has a vast section on WHAT'S BAD, WHAT TO WATCH, and RECALLS.
By comparison, the Toyota Corolla (2002 - 2007) entry had almost nothing there. The earlier Corolla (1997-2003) entry is minimal.
What's happening?
OK, so there may have beem a lot of Focuses manufactured to provide lots of feedback but that BAD list for the Focus is worrying long!
Honest John's site is a good place to look for a general idea about a car, but some of the information is questionable, and much is subjective. For example, "Sharp edges of rear hatch." I've had my Focus for eight years and somehow have escaped being injured by the rear hatch! "Estate is not as good looking as hatchback." In whose eyes?
Other comments apply only to US cars, which are quite different to the European version.
There are plain inaccuracies too. "Can suffer water leaks at rear through vertical light clusters and light contacts can rust up causing current drains." What light contacts? The implication is that there are tailgate plunger and pad connectors as used on some earlier Fords; the Focus doesn't have these!
Other genuine faults are worth knowing, but are mostly very trivial. For example, "Contacts in rear number plate light can rust up." They don't rust, they are plated, but can develop a white powdery corrosion that stops the light working. One of mine did this. I took both bulbs out, cleaned the bulbs and connectors and applied some vaseline. This has happened once in eight years! Hardly a reason to reject a car.
Another example: "Rear silencers can rot through in two years if car used for short runs from cold." (So can they on any car used in such circumstances.) In fact, usually they don't rot through. The rear silencer is double skinned, and one of the suppliers to Ford didn't meet the quality standards WRT to plating of the outer skin. Only early cars are affected, and they will have had that box changed by now. It was only a cosmetic issue; affected vehicles would still pass an MOT with the outer skin rotted.
Of course, with any car you might be unlucky and have a problem no one else has had. For example, my brother had a Corolla from new. It was well looked after. Just before it was three years old, the lower cam drive sprocket shed its teeth, causing the same damage to the engine as a cam belt failure would. It would have been a very expensive repair had it happened a few weeks later. That doesn't mean the Corolla is unreliable, just that my bro' was unlucky.
Why not make a short list, then test drive each one? If time and pocket allow, hire the one you like best for a weekend. I always do this before changing cars.
The message from Chris Whelan contains these words:
Estates are almost always better looking than their saloon/hatch base model, with the exception of the Citroën DS Safari which was possibly the ugliest estate car ever, particularly considering how beautiful the saloon was.
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