Should I fix my Focus?

El_Torro

Apologies if this type of question gets asked all the time, I don't tend to frequent this part of the forums.


My car is a Ford Focus, 2005 reg, with 121k miles on the clock. It creaks a bit like an old sailing vessel but other than that it runs OK. I MOT'ed it in August and just replaced the tyres, nothing else wrong with it.


The last couple of days the Powertrain Warning Light has come on. I took it to a garage and they say they need to get the specialist engineer in to check it out. Will cost somewhere between £150 and £400 to fix, depending on the problem.


So is it time to scrap the car or should I fix it? I've been eyeing up getting my next car for a while now, but happy to keep what I've got til it becomes too expensive to keep on the road.

andyca

Most places will perform an ODB-II diagnostics for £30-50, which is basically plugging in a device to the port under the dash and reading the fault codes which should give them a 95% certain idea of what the problem is.

Getting a "specialist engineer to check it out" seems like garage speak for getting you ready for a large bill.

Ask if they can do a diagnostics reading and give you a more accurate estimate, or better still get another garage to do it, all garages will have a decent fault code reader for a 2005 ford and it will take 5 minutes.

tykesi

If there's nothing else wrong with it why not fix it. Older cars need maintenance, you could quite easily go out and buy a newer car which needs £100-£400 spending on it within the next twelve months. Repairs of that cost as a one off certainly aren't considered "too expensive to keep on the road".

arcon5

andyca wrote: »

Most places will perform an ODB-II diagnostics for £30-50, which is basically plugging in a device to the port under the dash and reading the fault codes which should give them a 95% certain idea of what the problem is.

Getting a "specialist engineer to check it out" seems like garage speak for getting you ready for a large bill.

Ask if they can do a diagnostics reading and give you a more accurate estimate, or better still get another garage to do it, all garages will have a decent fault code reader for a 2005 ford and it will take 5 minutes.

Fault codes can be misleading. Useful to pinpointing which systems to investigate. But most definitely will not diagnose it to a 95 percent certainty in 5 minutes

El_Torro

tykesi wrote: »

If there's nothing else wrong with it why not fix it. Older cars need maintenance, you could quite easily go out and buy a newer car which needs £100-£400 spending on it within the next twelve months. Repairs of that cost as a one off certainly aren't considered "too expensive to keep on the road".

I don't disagree. Though the question is how long will it be before the next thing goes wrong? It's a gamble either way I suppose.


One thing I forgot to mention is that I've already been warned that the brakes will need replacing in a couple of months. Another expense which isn't that high, though they add up.

arcon5 wrote: »

Fault codes can be misleading. Useful to pinpointing which systems to investigate. But most definitely will not diagnose it to a 95 percent certainty in 5 minutes

That's what the garage said. That their own diagnostic equipment narrowed down the problem but they need to get the specialist in to actually fix it. Exactly what needs fixing is unclear, hence the range given for the cost.

System

El_Torro wrote: »

My car is a Ford Focus, 2005 reg, with 121k miles on the clock. It creaks a bit like an old sailing vessel but other than that it runs OK. I MOT'ed it in August and just replaced the tyres, nothing else wrong with it.

The last couple of days the Powertrain Warning Light has come on. I took it to a garage and they say they need to get the specialist engineer in to check it out. Will cost somewhere between £150 and £400 to fix, depending on the problem.

So is it time to scrap the car or should I fix it?

Hell no. Fix it. As you said there is nothing else wrong with it. Even if it is £400 that would make it a cheap year's motoring, Unless you have several grand to spend on a newer car whatever you buy has a risk of having an issue. I have a 2010 Mondeo. £400 would just about cover a year's worth of depreciation, your car has reached a point where it has little to none.

In the States they'll put a brand new gearbox costing $2000 in a 20 year old car because they recognise it is cheaper to fix than to buy a new car.

There are two people I know. Friend runs around in a battered old diesel Astravan which he bought for £6k at 3 years old. He has had for almost 10 years and its just short of 250,000 miles on it. He has a few times over the last 4/5 years spent £300 or £400 to get it fixed even though its been heading towards or gone over 200,000 miles, for example having to replace all the shocks on it, a new clutch and I think it's had a turbo as well. Second person is my brother. Brother likes his new cars so he gets a new car on finance every few years. Current one is a VW Golf and indeed it is a nice car, no denying it. But by the time my brother changes his Golf the depreciation over 3 years alone will have cost about the same as the amount my friend spent not only to buy his Astra but all the repair and service costs for the 10 years he's had it.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I've already been warned that the brakes will need replacing in a couple of months. Another expense which isn't that high, though they add up.

Brakes are a consumable item the same as tyres. Brakes are not a repair, they're a normal running cost. You could buy a newer car 3 or 4 years old and it may need new brake pads/discs within the first year you buy it. You could do the brake discs and pads yourself and it isn't that expensive, it'll be half to a third of what a garage might charge.

cb1979

Maybe contact a local Ford dealer to diagnose it for you, they may have more knowledge than your garages specialist engineer and diagnose it faster and more accurately

A quote of £150 - £400 to look at it and fix it without even seeing the car is a bit of a wild guess on the part of your garage

HeatonGuy

The focus is generally a good car. If it's a Mark 1 though then probably not worth fixing. A Mark 2, that's different.

Is it Petrol or Diesel, this will give a clue as to the fault.

peter12345678910

This is a mkII, you don't see many mark 1 nowadays. So maybe if it is a mkII though I think it was the 2006 model that had thecluster problem. Keep it for at least a couple of years....and the better car you want would be cheaper.:beer:

TheMoonandBack

I would get it checked, agree a diagnostic fee beforehand - say £80.
See what the result is then decide.
I recently had a similar issue on our old Vauxhall. It had logged about 7 fault codes when checked, but the actual fault was a blown fuse caused by a fault in the electronic thermostat which cost £70 to fix.

System

cb1979 wrote: »

A quote of £150 - £400 to look at it and fix it without even seeing the car is a bit of a wild guess on the part of your garage

Not really. It suggests there are a handful of possibilities that it could be, the cheapest being £150 to fix and the most expensive being £400 to fix.

Say I take my car into the garage because I'm finding it hard to get into gear and testing reveals its working fine but the clutch for whatever reason isn't disengaging properly. The problem would be one of two things. It would either be a faulty clutch (worn fingers on the pressure plate) or a faulty slave cylinder as its hydraulic and not cable operated clutch. The former would cost a lot more than the latter but because the slave cylinder is actually in the bellhousing so the gearbox has to come off to check for definite then the garage cannot say with 100% certainty what it is. In that event I'd get a call saying that they think it could be either of those things and what the range of the cost would be.