Car struggled to go up hill :(

Carrera74

I’ve just bought a new car and we went for a drive yesterday to Buttermere in the Lake District. We went via Honister Pass and had no problem getting there but on the way back we had to stop on the steepest part and the car refused to go again for what seemed an eternity even though the OH was in first gear and had his foot the floor. Is this normal for a car to struggle on steep hills? It’s 20% gradient which I guess is really steep but I would’ve thought being new it would’ve managed it okay. It’s just had a service so everything ‘should’ be ticketyboo. Have I bought a poorly car? We had nothing but the 2 kids in the back so no excess weight as such. I’ve been before in my old clapped out car and had no problems.

nickmack

Carrera74 wrote: »

I’ve just bought a new car and we went for a drive yesterday to Buttermere in the Lake District.

What's the car?

Crabman

What engine is it? If you post the make, model and spec, someone will be able to look up the bhp figures for the exact power output.

Carrera74

Oh thank you.

It's a ford focus 1.6 zetec petrol, 05 plate

b33r

Carrera74 wrote: »

Oh thank you.

It's a ford focus 1.6 zetec petrol, 05 plate

No way should that have struggled, I'd get it looked at/serviced, I assume it has a warranty?

Carrera74

We only bought it on Saturday and it had had a service at the Ford garage. I'll get it booked in as still under warranty.

DealDrivers_company_representative

If it is the standard 1.6 petrol engine it will be just shy of a fairly sedentary100ps/bhp engine (ps ratings are within 2% of bhp), it shouldn't present a problem but any car will have struggled to get the initial momentum for a fw seconds if - as you say - you had to go from a complete standing start on the very steepest part of this hill.

A 100ps engine would take a few seconds to get up to a decent rolling speed on a very steep slope...even with the best will in the world if you were at a full stop when hitting the accelorator.

I took a 2.0 diesel engine 'other brand' car up a very steep hill recently, again from a complete standing start as the car in front had stalled (fabulous!), and even with a 163ps 2.0L engine it took a few seconds to start to get decent momentum as the angle of the slope was so steep. (Qualify your 'eternity'....was it just a few seconds whilst it gained forward momentum from a full stop on that steep part?).

A 100p engine is healthy for a small-medium family hatch but it's not a massively powerful engine to race you out of slopes with a 1 in 3 to 1in 4 pitch at anything other than crawler speeds from a completely full stop position.

Get it checked but I know the road you were on and unless you've bought a very high mileage car with huge mileage and a tired engine, I think the road angle might just have made it wheeze a little for a few seconds if there was no forward momentum to start with.

manda1205

Is the clutch ok, on an 05 plate you wouldn't expect it would need one. Did you notice a smell or anything?

anewman

Was the petrol tank near empty? I'm not sure if sometimes when going up hill a low fuel tank can make the fuel supply to the engine poor.

mr_accountant

Maybe worth trying to change the fuel filter, a fuel filter is most tested when a car is going uphill due to the extra fuel required, if the filter is blocked it may give poor acceleration.

Worth changing IMO as its only a few quid and should be easy to change and it will at least eliminate this possibility. Buy a genuine or good quality replacement.