Does Everyone in here ..

Well, someone owns a tin of paint...

look out of the window for a few moments, there are loads of them out there, and unlike most makes and models they are not getting scrapped for old age, even the first ones on a v plate are still good and the overall design is still much the same, so they don't look outdated.

Yes my focus is a v reg and apart from the aircon/ fan thermal fuse failing which cost about 20P to fix never had any problems with it and it gets abused by all who use it

Back around 2002, the workshop foreman at my local dealer told me, with apparent seriousness, to hang on to my Mk1 Focus as subsequent ones had to be less reliable or the dealers would go out of business.

Chris

Just the one. Y reg June 2001 2.0 ESP, still on the original exhaust system, battery, brake disks, shocks, antifreeze and pretty much everything else except tyres, brake pads, windscreen wipers, oil and plugs. Nothing ever seems to break on these things, not that I'm complaining. Mind you it has only done 50k miles. I'm sure at a more normal mileage for 10 years old something would have broken by now.

Mine is an X plater, 96k, and looking back through the bills, it's never had anything other than pads, wipers, tyres, oil and plugs either. It's got a grumbly wheel bearing and is due a cambelt shortly, but I did only pay £375 for it. With MOT until December.

I heard much the same from a local Ford dealer service dept some years ago after I got my Y reg 2.0 in 2004. Can't remember what we were actually chatting about originally but I asked what tended to go wrong most often on them so I could be forewarned. He thought about it for a moment and replied "Nothing. The engines never break, the gearboxes never break, the suspension bushes and drop links don't need changing every 50k like on Mondeos and they don't rust. We hardly ever see one back with a fault."

The only thing you could call close to a fault with mine in 7 years was water dripping into the pollen filter and then down into the passenger footwell. I put a ring of silicone sealant in a strategic place to direct the drips elsewhere and it's been bone dry ever since. Oh, and the handbrake cable eventually seized on one side but I think that's it.

A mate had rear wheel bearings go on his at about 50k but then he did tend to corner it with the door mirrors dragging on the ground wherever possible. Mind you I do the same. Even after 7 years I've still not really got used to just how fast these bloody things go round corners on the 205/50/16 tyre models compared to anything else I've owned previously. It's like a f***ing go-cart. Dunno what the skinny tyre models are like but I suspect they're also pretty decent.

Mine's on 195/60/15s. For what it is, ie a small family hatch that's not a hot hatch, it is simply amazing. It can be hurled into corner and it just sticks. It turns in quickly, it reacts to every little tweak on the wheel. Out on the lanes I go to work on it can be very quiet at 5:30am during the weekend, and I've experimented with chucking it around corners fully expecting to get into a slithery mess, but it simply doesn't happen.

My T reg did 100K in 10 years, and cost less than 100UKP for non-service parts. I fully expected it to outlast me, until I hit a Land Rover with it!

Chris

Only the silly people

I know, my daughter came to visit me in her Y-reg model today, and I've been looking at all the queries in here, asking her if the cam belt has been replaced etc, but I asked her that soon after she bought it...

In article , Dave Baker writes

This caught my eye this morning:

If you take out the service items, and things like "rocker cover gasket", which would have been part of a scheduled cambelt change, there's not too much left.

An "enthusiast" (!) owned car such as that one is likely to have been driven harder than average, which might account for the suspension, driveshaft, clutch and bearing replacements.

Chris

Own a Focus, or several Focuses?

;-)

No just me with a million questions a day :-p

In message , Pete writes

That's what the group is for, innit?