What to look out for when buying a Focus TDCI?

Dual-mass flywheel failure. See

Well reading the Focus page on that site, I would certainly hesitate before buying one! Although in the middle of the page they mention the excellent reliability record and the various recommendations for the model. They aren't that cheap to fix either, as my dead instrument panel cost over £300 to replace.

Exactly. It's a bit of a lottery - most of the time, it's fine, but if you fall foul of one of the known faults, it will cost you a sack of money. My TDCi has been among the most expensive cars I've owned (including Lexus GS300, 3 V8 Range Rovers, 2 Discoveries, Mercedes E320 etc) and has been an object lesson to me in not to pay too much attention to the fuel economy (which, incidentally, has been less than

That is about $2,200 less than an instrument panel for a Lexus LS ;)

Have you compared that to the cost of an instrument panel for other makes? Audi perhaps ;-)

The prices of many service items are also very reasonable when compared to some others.

The generally perceived wisdom is that Vauxhall (in UK) parts are cheapest on average, closely followed by Ford.

Chris

My old Peugeot 306's speedo died. Peugeot wanted £365 for a replacement instrument cluster. I just dismantled it, and swapped the stepper motor controlling the speedo dial for the one driving the rev counter. Okay, no rev counter, but I'm fine with that - it cost me nothing.