Focus diesels

Are we talking the 90bhp "Lynx" 1.8TDI?

It's a slightly uprated version of the engine in my Fiesta, and they're known for the oil cooler cracking across the ports, giving virtually identical symptoms to head gasket failure, except that the oil won't be contaminated with water - just the other way around - brown sludge boiling over from the coolant expansion tank.

I don't know if Focii have just an "overheating light" instead of a gauge, but if they do you won't know when the temperature is shooting up and you won't know that this has happened until it's all full of gunge.

If this does happen, don't believe anyone who tells you the head gasket has blown - check the oil cooler first (it's not too hard to take off, I don't think) and if it's cracked replace it (around £120 for the part) and then thoroughly flush the cooling system, using washing powder to break down the oil (commonly used trick in the trade, I'm told), and drain and refill it

*lots* of times to get rid of the sludge the best you can - it's the best repair short of a completely new engine.

Mine went at 135k, possibly caused by mixing different types of coolant, possibly not though - I know of another that went at 40k and was sorted under warranty.

Personally if I knew it had gone, and the engine not been completely replaced, I'd be reluctant to buy it, as the coolant passages will always be slightly blocked, and the proper flow will never be 100%.

If it does go on you after having bought it, do what I've recommended and then drive it for as long as it lasts.

They're not a bad engine (Endura-DI) - a *huge* improvement on the earlier Endura-DE - they feel immensely refined and smooth compared to the older ones, but they're still not a patch on French engines of the same age (HDI or the early Pug/Citroen TDs) or German ones (VAG TDIs), which are much better overall.

They have a gauge and a fairly smart overheat system that uses alternate cylinders to pump cooling air through the system(?!) Apparantly you can drive them with no coolant in......(yeah right). The ECU alert light serves as the overheat light as well as about 50 other fault conditions.

It's a nightmare as there is no space at all even with the oil filter off. A pit or lift helps greatly.

Worked fine on my K-series when that blew it's gasket.

Pop on over to the diesel board at

and have a look.

In brief....

All foci suffer from rust in a few known trap areas - rear boot glass and handle where it rubs on paint, bottom of door seals, around wing mirrors. No structural troublespots.

Lynx 1.8 diesel is solid and reliable - there are examples on 300k now with no issues. Service interval is nominally 10k but a 5k oil and filter swap desirable. Use only syntheic oil. Cambelts notionally godd for 100k but smart mechanic will swap at 60k top. Tensioner and cambelt kit is £42 trade from a dealer. New tensioner is a spring loaded system so Clavis gauage not needed.

No special tooling required apart from the timing kit for setting TDC (about £100 trade includes a camshaft puller)

Sounds almost fancy. And aircooled - is that new? (vw.....no, it's not) :-)

Talking of which, it was virtually impossible to change the oil filter on my Fiesta without oil pissing out everywhere, all over the lower suspension arm and the driveshaft particularly - only way to avoid it was to stuff solid the surrounding area with rags, which would then get absolutely *soaked* in oil - not the best design there.

Yeah, but my point was you'll never be completely sure, and in marginal cooling situations it won't help, though in theory it should clear it properly.

The engine itself felt absolutely spot on in mine - always started first time etc - I bought it with 99k on the clock and ran it up to 135k with no problems bar the oil cooler going, then my plans changed so I sold it for spares/repairs on ebay - I had initially planned to run it to a very high mileage, which had that not gone, I'd have probably happily managed.

In message , Chris Street writes

Some do but by no means "all foci". As you say its down to imprecise assembly on some cars which cause chaffing. No rust on my 6 year old model, which is more than I could say for our (now offloaded) Ka which had rust after a couple of years.

Not uncommon it seems. On the Previa it pours out onto a 3-inch tubular crossmember. No choice but to wipe the whole lot clean afterwards.

Yes, I should really have said "all models of Foci" not jsut the diesels.

Chris Street ( snipped-for-privacy@chris-street.demon.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

So this "rusty bootlid" - hatches, saloons AND estates?

In message , Adrian writes

AFAIK its just the hatchback where the glass forms a "v" at the base. It can rub on the paintwork if not positioned quite right.

There are two issues with the bootlids. First the glass can form a water trap around the base due to it not being mounted correctly (it's a stick on with mastci sort of affair). The second one is the chromed handle on the Ghia models that chafes on the paint and wears through to metal. Non Ghia spec has a black plastic handle and doesn't do this.

This affects the hatch and estates AFAIK, not sure about the saloons as I've never seen one close up.

I punch a hole in the base of my filter to get as much out as possible. Still goes all over the place though. Whats really annoying is that you have to feed the new filter rubber side first through all the pipes picking up piles of grime and crap that can end up in the engine. Best to install with the plastic cover on and take that off just before you screw the can on.

Watch out for weak synchro on third gear. I have heard that it quite a common problem, my car is a suffer at 90k and is a 2000W TDDI

Geo