Ford Focus - £10k budget

sigma

sigma

sigma

Caporegime
Joined
13 Nov 2006
Posts
29,277
OK so the budget is £10k and an all-round decent car is needed. A Focus has been test driven and it ticked all the boxes.

It appears that the £10k won't open up the doors to the Focus III, so it's going to have to have a II facelift - this is no problem because we think this looks nicer!

I'm a bit stuck as to which model to purchase. Mileage is less than 20k per annum, so no need for a diesel. Is the Titanium spec the one to go for? 1.8?

I'm just browsing HonestJohn at the moment to see what they recommend, any more advice would be welcome!
 
I'd get the titanium if you like more toys. If you want xenon lights only titanium offers these as they were an option, not standard. Titanium also has a rear arm rest so not great if you regularly need to carry 3 rear passengers. Personally, zetec is really the lowest spec acceptable on a Focus.

The 1.6 petrol is quite good on mpg, but rather slow. It goes much better above 4k rpm but then the fuel usage isn't so great. The 2.0 petrol is probably more common to find in titanium spec, although there will be a lot of nasty diesels.

Good choice on not getting a mk3, the mk2.5 focus drives much better (IMO) but not quite as well as the original mk1
 
I don't think speed is going to be a deal-breaker so if the 1.6 is significantly more economical then it might be worth a shout, I doubt there will be many 1.6 Titaniums about though.

Thanks for the advice, will have to look long and hard.
 
There are a few Focus 1.6 titanium about, looked at one owned by an old couple but the clutch was iffy and lots of scratches, shame.

I think in the 3 months I looked I found one petrol titanium with xenon headlight option inside 220 miles of me :( settled on a zetc in the end, there are hundreds of them so it makes it easy to walk away if the slightest thing is wrong.
 
There only appears to be 2mpg difference between the 1.6 and 1.8 - I wonder how noticeable that will actually be in real life.

Specs are as follows:

Zetec lists from £14,695 and adds 16" alloy wheels, dark headlamp surrounds, sports suspension, sports seats, Quickclear heated front windscreen, perimeter alarm, driver's seat lumbar adjustment, rear spoiler and upgraded centre console. A body colour rear spoiler, previously an option, is also included as standard.

Focus Titanium lists from £15,445. Equipment highlights are privacy glass, automatic headlights, rain-sensing wipers, auto-dimming rear view mirror, Sony CD sound system, electric rear windows, cooled glovebox, aluminium scuff plates and footwell lighting
Click to expand...

Pretty sure a Zetec would do the job if Titaniums are hard to find.
 
Is it worth going for a 2010 registered car so that it's still under warranty?

Also, is it worth renewing the Ford warranty when it runs out? Nothing major appears to go wrong on these but you never know.
 
Last edited:
Is a MK4 Mondeo too big? You might get more for your money.

I wouldn't spend £10k on a MKII Focus. Get an older one if you like them and save a lot of money for pretty much the same thing.

Edit: looks like £7k will get you a low(ish) mileage 3 year old one in Titanium trim.
 
Last edited:
sigma said:
Yeah, the budget is £10k but that doesn't mean that £10k has to be spent.
Click to expand...

Either get a pre-facelift 2.0 TDCI non-DPF (the DPF filter was an optional extra pre-facelift), or a facelift 2.0 Petrol.

Whatever you do, do not spend £10,000 on one!
I have a pre-facelift 2007 2.0 TDCI Focus. I bought it off my Dad but I would expect to see it in a dealer for £6000-6500 with the alloys fully refurbished and a fresh MOT.
The MK2 Focus is an excellent car, but you would be daft to spend more than £8000 on one. Try to get a Zetec S if you can as they look quite cool.

sigma said:
Is it worth going for a 2010 registered car so that it's still under warranty?

Also, is it worth renewing the Ford warranty when it runs out? Nothing major appears to go wrong on these but you never know.
Click to expand...

Mine is on 78k and all that went wrong is the tank started to collapse on itself (warranty) and two new sets of front discs have been required.
Especially with the petrol I see very few potential big bills. Afaik the petrols have a dual mass flywheel but they hardly ever go wrong, there is no exhaust filter, no turbo and the fuel system is not high pressure like the diesel ones are.
I wouldn't bother with a warranty one of the best selling family cars in Britain! When a run-of-the-mill Ford goes wrong the bills are rarely big.
 
Last edited:
Bought the missus a 1.8 petrol titanium just under a year ago. was looking for a 2.0 but they were hard to come by and often seemed the seller thought they were worth quite a bit more than the 1.8's because they were 2.0 litres.

1.8 gets around 25-30mpg around town / short journeys. I did a 30 mile run on mostly A roads in it last weekend and managed 44mpg. I was also impressed with low rpm pull, its quite happy pulling cleanly from low revs, albeit not very fast!

I didn't consider anything other than the titanium spec as you get auto wipers and headlights, sony stereo and a nicer interior trim as standard. There were some other additions but those were enough to swing it for me, especially considering the price isn't much more than lower spec models.

I found the petrols to be much cheaper than a same age/mileage diesel, so given the low mileage it was going to cover a petrol was a no brainer.
 
There to seem to be a fair few Titaniums about so we'll go and look at a few of them.

I think a 2.0 would be an overkill.

OpenToSuggestions said:
Mine is on 78k and all that went wrong is the tank started to collapse on itself (warranty) and two new sets of front discs have been required.
Especially with the petrol I see very few potential big bills. Afaik the petrols have a dual mass flywheel but they hardly ever go wrong, there is no exhaust filter, no turbo and the fuel system is not high pressure like the diesel ones are.
I wouldn't bother with a warranty one of the best selling family cars in Britain! When a run-of-the-mill Ford goes wrong the bills are rarely big.
Click to expand...

That's good to hear.
 
2.0l is not overkill. It's a heavy car; well much heavier than the MK1 Focus anyway - closer to the MK3 Mondeo in weight.

Don't think you'll save on fuel either by getting the 1.8 as it's official combined mpg rating is just 0.5mpg more even though it's over a second slower to 60.

All other things being equal, the 2.0 is the one to get out of the two.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom