What should I look out for when buying used car?

geraint83

Ok - another quick question. I've now been looking at a few more cars and have found another possibility. As a recap:

09 Focus Style - 8k miles - £8k
59 Focus Style - 9k miles - £8k
10 Focus Zetec - 14k miles - £9k

I know it's an easy choice between the first two, but is it worth paying about another £1k for a newer Zetec, but has an additional 5k miles on the clock?

Any thoughts?

Hammyman

The older cars will probably have spent much of their time being driven around town which wears out steering, gearboxes and clutches far more than one doing a nice mix of urban and rural. For example, I do 20 miles between my town and the motorway. In that distance I'll need to brake a few times and do a total of 10 gearchanges for the couple of roundabouts. However in the mile it takes to get out of town, I'll have used the brakes several times and done maybe 20 gearchanges.

5k is negligible but there's some nice toys on the Zetec.

Kilty_2

The '10' Zetec will be an ex daily rental probably - most daily hire companies have them and not the base models.

Dippypud

geraint83 wrote: »

Thanks for your responses.


Horizon81:
My current car has been playing up for over a year now. Every so often it'll stall on me when the revs drop too far down when idling. Two separate garages have looked at the car for me - no fault codes are ever registered and they've checked everything and can't find any problem with the car. They've told me that the car is ok (I guess they think that it's all in my head - they couldn't reproduce the stalling while on a test run), so I've decided to get rid of the car now in case the problem gets worse.

well youre looking at a few possibilities the first is the idle control valve this is most likely so id've that changed.
This increases or decreases the idle speed depending on the info from the ecu it also causes starting issues diesels can be tempramental, if that doesnt cure it then youre looking at a faulty temperature sensor.
Does the speedo drop to zero when driving?
the vehicle speed sensor can cause stalling if this has happened.

Ford Focus and Mondeo 1.8 2.0 TDCi 2000 - 2003Problem: Engine hard to start, lack of power, rough idling etc.

Solution: A common problem has been identified with the above models and an insufficient signal from the camshaft postion sensor (CPS). The fault code P0340 may have been triggered which relates to the CPS. A revised wiring harness / sensor should be installed which increases the sensor signal from 5 volts to 12 volts. The increase in voltage will provide an improved signal from the sensor.

Fix it, don't throw it.

geraint83

Kilty wrote: »

The '10' Zetec will be an ex daily rental probably - most daily hire companies have them and not the base models.

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

geraint83

Dippypud wrote: »

well youre looking at a few possibilities the first is the idle control valve this is most likely so id've that changed.
This increases or decreases the idle speed depending on the info from the ecu it also causes starting issues diesels can be tempramental, if that doesnt cure it then youre looking at a faulty temperature sensor.
Does the speedo drop to zero when driving?
the vehicle speed sensor can cause stalling if this has happened.

Ford Focus and Mondeo 1.8 2.0 TDCi 2000 - 2003Problem: Engine hard to start, lack of power, rough idling etc.

Solution: A common problem has been identified with the above models and an insufficient signal from the camshaft postion sensor (CPS). The fault code P0340 may have been triggered which relates to the CPS. A revised wiring harness / sensor should be installed which increases the sensor signal from 5 volts to 12 volts. The increase in voltage will provide an improved signal from the sensor.

Fix it, don't throw it.

Thanks for the info - I'll have to take this into consideration.

The car has actually been into two separate garages (one independent and one dealership) and neither of mentioned this. There's no problem with the speedometer failing.

pompeyfaith

Also check the spark plug leads as that was the problem with mine.

One of the leads was breaking down and causing a weak spark to the plug.

Whilst the engine was under load it was fine soon as it idled the problem occurred.

geraint83

pompeyfaith wrote: »

Also check the spark plug leads as that was the problem with mine.

One of the leads was breaking down and causing a weak spark to the plug.

That shouldn't be the problem (well, I hope not). Earlier this year I had a problem with water dripping down onto the spark plug well from the gap between the windscreen washer jets and the bonnet. In order to fix the problem, I had to get new washer jet seals which have been redesigned to stop this type of problem, new spark plugs and spark plug leads.