Advice on car purchase please

melb

Hi there I'm thinking of buying a 2009 Ford Focus Zetec 1.6 with 45,000 miles on the clock for £3700 from Evans Halshaw.

I have a 2004 Ford Focus flight 1.6 and really like it so want to buy similar.

My question is, are there any specific questions I should be asking before I buy the car. So far looking online I can see that the cambelt is supposed to be replaced after 10 years or 100,000 (presumably whichever comes the sooner) but nothing much else.

To be honest after looking for some months, this seems quite cheap.

However, would I be better buying an slightly newer car with higher mileage?

My absolute top budget would be about £5,000. thanks for any words of wisdom

bigisi

What's wrong with the 2004 model?

Nodding_Donkey

I think the best advice is go elsewhere going by the posts about EH all over the internet and the EH reps performance on here.

peter12345678910

The car you have may be more reliable as the mkII 2005 to 2010 suffers from instrument cluster problems. It....may be even be more reliable than the ecoboost Degas recall nightmare that many seem to be having with the mk3 focus - changing the engine and trying to sell the ecoboost nightmare to others as quick as possible.

melb

thanks for all replies. It's funny I've just spent my lunchbreak at the garage asking whether I should spend a bit of money on my existing car instead (having said that the mileage on mine is about 98,000 so might need to cambelt change anyway?)

The problems with mine are just that I starting spending a bit of money each MOT and thought it's time to get rid. We had a courtesy car for a couple of weeks after mine had been vandalised and I thought there was something with the steering wheel and gearbox until someone pointed out that it was because it was only a couple of years old. Went back to mine and it felt like driving a tank.

Then last October the blower would only work on full blast or not at all and the aircon had stopped blowing out cold air. (never had to have it regassed in all the years I've had it (about 9 or ten years) as the air has always come out icy cold.

I could cope in the winter as I'd just put the heater on briefly to warm it up a bit and then turn it off so I didn't get deafened.

But this heat is killing me with no cold air.

My friend at work was scrapping his Focus and fitted his resistor into my car but it still didn't work. I've just been to the garage who said they will fit a new one for £20 and we'll take it from there. They said next thing was to see if there was a leak and re-gassing if necessary. I trust my garage.

I've just looked back at the advisories for my MOT from last October and the only advisory was one of the tyres was nearing the legal limit (must replace that asap)

So I'm thinking maybe get a service done hopefully get the aircon done and keep it a bit longer. Also I was only offered £100 trade-in by EH - understandable but a bit disappointing as I'd just put £40 worth of petrol in lol! The other thing is my son is taking his test soon and I was thinking I might as well hang onto it for him but obviously would have to put it through MOT then anyway.

Sorry for the ramble.

By the way I saw all the negative reports about EH and I was a bit on my mettle when I went. Had to sit through all the finance information even though I'd said I wanted to pay cash but the man was OK and not pushy - just had to go through all the tedious stuff.

System

melb wrote: »

Then last October the blower would only work on full blast or not at all and the aircon had stopped blowing out cold air. (never had to have it regassed in all the years I've had it (about 9 or ten years) as the air has always come out icy cold.

Heater motor fault is because you've not serviced the car properly, the pollen filter has got blocked and stopped air flowing over the resistor pack so its burned out. Your friends didn't work cos his has packed up for the same reason. Same with aircon, it doesn't work cos you've not serviced it properly, it should be regassed every 2-3 years.

You'll probably find that if you change the shocks like I've just done this week at 133,000 miles on my Mondeo that the car feels a whole lot better and changing the oil in the "sealed for life but comes with filler and drain plugs" gearbox makes the gear change a whole lot better and DIYing it or getting a mate to do it you can get all the shocks and gearbox oil changed for sub £200. Mine now feels like it did when I bought it at 2 years old and almost 100,000 miles ago.

If you service a car properly and keep up to it it doesn't cost money to get through a MOT. At over 8 years old and having done over 130,000 miles I still get my Mondeo serviced by my Ford dealer when its supposed to, things get fixed when they show signs of failing and as a result every MOT is a pass with no work required. Get another car and treat it as badly as your current one and it'll end up the same no matter how good it starts off being.

Back to the 2009 Focus, I'd rather buy a car with at least 8k-10k a year average annual mileage, the ones I buy tend to be motorway mileage munchers that have done 20-30k a year average, my current Mondeo was on 38k when I bought it at 2 years old, the one prior to it was on 90k when I bought it at 3 years old. Over a period of 11 years and over a total of 170k miles done between the two I've spent under £1000 in total in non-service repairs. 45k at 9 years old suggest lots of running around town or being stood, neither of which are good for a car.

EG04DVP, put it into https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/ and you'll see it only ever failed one MOT in its entire life on a sticking rear brake caliper handbrake mechanism even though its last MOT before it was scrapped when a mate I sold it to killed it was at 168,000 miles.

melb

I take your point. I used to have it serviced yearly at the same time as the MOT but missed a year and then another one etc.

The resistor was working fine on my colleague's car which he maintains himself and is only scrapping because the clutch needs replacing and it is a job that he cannot do himself and will cost more than the car's worth. He wouldn't have fitted it in my car if it wasn't working in his.

foxy-stoat

No doubt you will be advised not to buy the Ford but to buy a 14 year old Almera for £395 soon !!

melb

Lol! that's funny

Carrot007

Tarambor wrote: »

Same with aircon, it doesn't work cos you've not serviced it properly, it should be regassed every 2-3 years.

Quite frankly ridiculous.


AIrcon only needs gassing if there is a leak (in which case it needs a lot more), or it has not been used (it should never be turned off).