Ford Focus choice help please

DCodd

Remember that Euro 6 regulations are about to come out and will penalise diesel cars that pump out too much NO2 so your annual road licence may well go up from £35.

RICK..._2

We had a 57 reg Focus - 1.6 zetec petrol and it wasn't very good on fuel at all, even on a motorway run.

Decided to get rid and took delivery of our new 10 reg focus 1.6 tdci on monday and extremely pleased with it. Very good on diesel and a lot quicker/smoother than the old one.

The 1.6 petrol is a good car though. The only downside I can think of apart from fuel (we do in excess of 12k a year so I guess that won't affect you anyway) is it was quite sluggish at times, especially with 2+ passengers. I think tax was £150 for the year aswell.

AdrianHi

Clear message here, short trips and low mileage and the modern diesel is the wrong choice.
Does this 1.6 TDCi engine have a DPF? Some smaller diesels don't need them to meet emmisions standards. If it has a DPF it's out of the question for persistent short trips, you will clog it up and keep needing money spent cleaning it out.
I heard a rumour that Skoda won't sell a diesel car with a DPF to city/town based taxi drivers for this reason. This could be an "internet myth" though.

martria

As far as I can work out to be able to get the Focus in the £35 tax bracket it has to have a DPF fitted. Please if anyone knows any different let me know.

chieffy72

martria wrote: »

As far as I can work out to be able to get the Focus in the £35 tax bracket it has to have a DPF fitted. Please if anyone knows any different let me know.

Correct.

The thing is,if you're gonna keep it for 10 years you'll save £115 per year on road tax (assuming it comes taxed for the first year you'll save £1035 over the following 9 years if the difference stays the same) plus you should average 15-20 miles per gallon more. Go for the diesel I say.

goldspanners

chieffy72 wrote: »

Correct.

The thing is,if you're gonna keep it for 10 years you'll save £115 per year on road tax (assuming it comes taxed for the first year you'll save £1035 over the following 9 years if the difference stays the same) plus you should average 15-20 miles per gallon more. Go for the diesel I say.

but have a look here first.

chieffy72

Just done that and stumbled across this on the first page!!!!!

Dpf Problems // BlogCatalog Topic // BlogCatalog
Sex Teacher suggestions on problems and solutions. Detailed information about sexual problems, myths, sexual drive and desire. ...
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/dpf+problems/ - Cached - Similar

AdrianHi

chieffy72 wrote: »

Correct.

The thing is,if you're gonna keep it for 10 years you'll save £115 per year on road tax (assuming it comes taxed for the first year you'll save £1035 over the following 9 years if the difference stays the same) plus you should average 15-20 miles per gallon more. Go for the diesel I say.

But then you run the risk of paying £400 every 3 months to get the DPF cleaned out on that diesel driven around town all the time.

OK you could get around this by making sure that once a week you go out for at least a 1 hour drive. For the particles to get burned off you need the car to be hot which takes 20 to 30 minutes of driving and be driving with a good exhaust flow - i.e. open road - for a good period. If the DPF clogs it will go through a "regeneration cycle" which requires these conditions.

chieffy72

I really don't know where you get your figures from. £400 every 3 months!? That's just unnecessary scaremongering. I must have sold at least 100 Fords with DPF's in the last 2 or three years and I haven't had one single customer come back to me with a complaint.

AdrianHi

chieffy72 wrote: »

I really don't know where you get your figures from. £400 every 3 months!? That's just unnecessary scaremongering. I must have sold at least 100 Fords with DPF's in the last 2 or three years and I haven't had one single customer come back to me with a complaint.

Worst case scenario for sure, not Fords neccessarily but there are definately a few people around who have spent that kind of money 3 or 4 times in a year before giving up and buying a petrol instead.

Sorry if I gave the impression that I thought Ford DPF's were problematic in particular, it's more a general point.