Bobberoo’s Ford Fetish Thread (Warning: Contains Peanut)
Discussion
Well then, where to begin, i could start with the purchase of the first one i suppose, a sea grey Ford Focus 1.8TDCI Ghia 56 plate in February of 2012, just under 37k and one owner from new with full Ford history for the princely sum of £8000, we fell in love with it as soon as we saw it, much higher spec than the mk1 Focus 1.6 Ghia petrol we had, auto wipers/lights/dimming rear mirror, cruise control and ABS, on top of the 4x electric windows and heated electric mirrors we already had!! We'd had it for a couple of years or so when the issues started, first there was a coolant leak resulting in a new thermostat housing and thermostat done at Fords, then EML on and into limp mode and it went into Fords who diagnosed a MAF sensor issue which was replaced, then it happened again and this time a glow plug fault was diagnosed and all four replaced along with the control module, then it happened again, i know and yes it was getting boring by now, this resulted in me being unhappy with the people at Fords, and telling them in no uncertain terms that i "Didn't care if they had it for a month and drove it to the moon and back, i didn't want it back until it was fixed!!!!"
So a week went by and then we had a call saying, "Well we couldn't find anything wrong with it, until our technician drove it home last night and broke down on the way into work yesterday!!"
Apparently there's a small section of loom which runs from the firewall to the MAF via the fan and a couple of other bits and bobs, which over time chafes through and causes the very problems we were having!!! 
The only reason we got to hear about it was the thech who broke down contacted Ford technical as he was stumped and they said "Oh yeah, we know about it but it's not a recall item!!!" 
That bill was for just an hours diagnostic and the £12.97 loom!!! Then the wear and tear stuff started to show up, both front lower control arms, all four droplinks, trackrod ends, two of the boost pipes, discs and pads (swapped for Mintex), i decided to do an EGR blank and would recommend it to anybody with the 1.8 engine as it hugely improves the responsiveness of the engine and smooths the idle, drivers side engine mount( a common failure on Focus's), lower torque mount all replaced by me on the drive, and then the big bucks issue reared it head, DMF. clutch and thrust bearing, an eyewatering £830!!!!! 
Not done by me on the drive!!
Then we found ourselves in the position of needing two cars again, so the magnificent Rover 45 Club Se was purchased for the impressive sum of £650, stop sniggering at the back, 2 1/2 years of sterling service needing only basic servicing, a couple of tyres and by choice the Pektron management relays replacing to give us central locking and the wash/wipe back on the stalk instead of a switch, oh yeah and some audio because it was pants!!!
Then i had a moment in the Focus, on the way to work at approximately early o'clock i chose to overtake a milkfloat, on the crest of a hill, right by a junction, a junction the driver of the milkfloat wanted to turn into, it wasn't pretty!!!
I knew straight away that it was a write off, 100k on it, starting to get tatty, 12 years old etc, but it was worth considerably more to us on the road than if they gave us a couple of grand and wrote it off, it was all panel damage luckily so i sourced two doors in the correct colour, a new bumper in the correct colour and set about filling, spraying and straightening as much as i could before gutting the doors as they were Zetec spec not Ghia and then swapped them and the bumper and rebuilt the doors in the car!!!
Not bad for a button pressing monkey who's never done bodywork in his life, even if i do say so myself!!!
Now i can see you're looking at this and thinking "That's not another Focus you plum!!" And you'd be right, and there is a small thread on my ownership of that piece of £650 British lovelyness, but this thread purports to be about a couple of Focus's, or Focii, or Focuses as no one seems to know exactly what the plural of the sodding things is!! Well i started looking for a second Mk2 Focus a couple of months ago as i know they're getting on in years now and having gone through the teething issues we'd had with the other one i decided in my infinte wisdom that another one would be the answer, yep i am a glutton for punishment, criteria was simple, low mileage, preferably estate, newest we could find whilst still being a Mk2, 1.8 or 2.0TDCi and Titanium spec within 70 miles of us.........................we might as well have asked for it to be gold coated too for the amount of them we could find, then i thought ok, i'll accept it being petrol or diesel but still want 1.8 or 2.0, we found a red 2.0 Titanium with 48k one owner 60 plate immaculate condition about 28miles from us, we went and looked, yeah, the paint was in worse shape than our Rover, auto dimming rear mirror hanging off, all four of the alloys kerbed, and it smelt like it had been smoked in from the first day of ownership, and they wanted £4800 for it, we walked away, we then found a 1.8 Titanium in Wokingham which we arranged to see on a Saturday at 2pm, that morning i was at work, working hard, busy, working, when i spotted my holygrail car!!! Ok i may be stretching it a bit, it was a 1.8TDCi Titanium, 58 plate, 69k, 2 owners, nice colour, huge history and it was in Bournemouth, and it had only gone live that morning, a call was made within an hour of them opening and he's already had two calls on it, people were coming to view it at lunchtime, i left work early, told my wife to get home and we were heading to see it by 11am, we called as we left to check and disaster. someone was already there test driving it!!!!
So seeing as we were on our way we decided to pop over to Fordingbridge to view a different Focus, as we arrived my phone went off, it was the dealer with the other Focus, no not that one, the other, other Focus, do try to keep up!!! The people who'd test drove it wanted to finance it, an 11 year old, 69,000 mile £3000 car, he'd refused on the grounds that he didn't finance anything older than 8 years, the cheapest car on his forecourt was £12k (other than the traded in Focus he'd been convinced to sell by his partner as he knew it would sell), we shot over there as quickly as we could, when we arrived we were met by an a very nice chap who was somewhat bemused by what he saw as a "cheap estate with a nice history" which he's had seven calls about in four hours and an offer to purchase unseen!!! His partner asked him to find another 1.8TDCi Titanium.............there was only one other for sale in the whole country, it was in Scotland, and had 120k on the clock!!! So we test drove it and this happened.
So we now have two Ford Focus mk2 1.8TDCi's, a Ghia spec and a Titanium spec, the new one has a few issues but it's all stuff i knew about when buying it, it goes in tomorrow for both timing belts to be done, oh didn't i say? Oh yeah Ford's in their infinite wisdom decided to replace a perfectly good lower chain drive from the crank to the high pressure fuel pump, with a wet belt setup which apparently is lifed at 125k or 120months whichever is soonest, huge thanks to both bungz and twing for telling me of the issues and providing me with the proof the car has the lower wet belt as no one else, not even Ford's, were interested in finding the information for me, i have no proof it's been done so it's going in to a Ford specialist for both belts, a water pump, engine flush and oil and filter change, for the even more eyewatering price of £935, but that is somewhat better than the £1280 Ford want just for the two belts!!!!
So a little caparison of them side by side.
And a couple of the car it's self.
Plans are to replace the drivers side engine mount, lower torque mount, lower control arms, droplinks and do an EGR blank, next year before we head off to Scotland i'll get the DMF and clutch done. sorry if you're bored but i intend to try and keep this updated, as much for my own benefit as anything else!!!
So a week went by and then we had a call saying, "Well we couldn't find anything wrong with it, until our technician drove it home last night and broke down on the way into work yesterday!!"
Apparently there's a small section of loom which runs from the firewall to the MAF via the fan and a couple of other bits and bobs, which over time chafes through and causes the very problems we were having!!! The only reason we got to hear about it was the thech who broke down contacted Ford technical as he was stumped and they said "Oh yeah, we know about it but it's not a recall item!!!" That bill was for just an hours diagnostic and the £12.97 loom!!! Then the wear and tear stuff started to show up, both front lower control arms, all four droplinks, trackrod ends, two of the boost pipes, discs and pads (swapped for Mintex), i decided to do an EGR blank and would recommend it to anybody with the 1.8 engine as it hugely improves the responsiveness of the engine and smooths the idle, drivers side engine mount( a common failure on Focus's), lower torque mount all replaced by me on the drive, and then the big bucks issue reared it head, DMF. clutch and thrust bearing, an eyewatering £830!!!!! Not done by me on the drive!!Then we found ourselves in the position of needing two cars again, so the magnificent Rover 45 Club Se was purchased for the impressive sum of £650, stop sniggering at the back, 2 1/2 years of sterling service needing only basic servicing, a couple of tyres and by choice the Pektron management relays replacing to give us central locking and the wash/wipe back on the stalk instead of a switch, oh yeah and some audio because it was pants!!!
Then i had a moment in the Focus, on the way to work at approximately early o'clock i chose to overtake a milkfloat, on the crest of a hill, right by a junction, a junction the driver of the milkfloat wanted to turn into, it wasn't pretty!!!
I knew straight away that it was a write off, 100k on it, starting to get tatty, 12 years old etc, but it was worth considerably more to us on the road than if they gave us a couple of grand and wrote it off, it was all panel damage luckily so i sourced two doors in the correct colour, a new bumper in the correct colour and set about filling, spraying and straightening as much as i could before gutting the doors as they were Zetec spec not Ghia and then swapped them and the bumper and rebuilt the doors in the car!!!
Not bad for a button pressing monkey who's never done bodywork in his life, even if i do say so myself!!!
Now i can see you're looking at this and thinking "That's not another Focus you plum!!" And you'd be right, and there is a small thread on my ownership of that piece of £650 British lovelyness, but this thread purports to be about a couple of Focus's, or Focii, or Focuses as no one seems to know exactly what the plural of the sodding things is!! Well i started looking for a second Mk2 Focus a couple of months ago as i know they're getting on in years now and having gone through the teething issues we'd had with the other one i decided in my infinte wisdom that another one would be the answer, yep i am a glutton for punishment, criteria was simple, low mileage, preferably estate, newest we could find whilst still being a Mk2, 1.8 or 2.0TDCi and Titanium spec within 70 miles of us.........................we might as well have asked for it to be gold coated too for the amount of them we could find, then i thought ok, i'll accept it being petrol or diesel but still want 1.8 or 2.0, we found a red 2.0 Titanium with 48k one owner 60 plate immaculate condition about 28miles from us, we went and looked, yeah, the paint was in worse shape than our Rover, auto dimming rear mirror hanging off, all four of the alloys kerbed, and it smelt like it had been smoked in from the first day of ownership, and they wanted £4800 for it, we walked away, we then found a 1.8 Titanium in Wokingham which we arranged to see on a Saturday at 2pm, that morning i was at work, working hard, busy, working, when i spotted my holygrail car!!! Ok i may be stretching it a bit, it was a 1.8TDCi Titanium, 58 plate, 69k, 2 owners, nice colour, huge history and it was in Bournemouth, and it had only gone live that morning, a call was made within an hour of them opening and he's already had two calls on it, people were coming to view it at lunchtime, i left work early, told my wife to get home and we were heading to see it by 11am, we called as we left to check and disaster. someone was already there test driving it!!!!
So seeing as we were on our way we decided to pop over to Fordingbridge to view a different Focus, as we arrived my phone went off, it was the dealer with the other Focus, no not that one, the other, other Focus, do try to keep up!!! The people who'd test drove it wanted to finance it, an 11 year old, 69,000 mile £3000 car, he'd refused on the grounds that he didn't finance anything older than 8 years, the cheapest car on his forecourt was £12k (other than the traded in Focus he'd been convinced to sell by his partner as he knew it would sell), we shot over there as quickly as we could, when we arrived we were met by an a very nice chap who was somewhat bemused by what he saw as a "cheap estate with a nice history" which he's had seven calls about in four hours and an offer to purchase unseen!!! His partner asked him to find another 1.8TDCi Titanium.............there was only one other for sale in the whole country, it was in Scotland, and had 120k on the clock!!! So we test drove it and this happened.So we now have two Ford Focus mk2 1.8TDCi's, a Ghia spec and a Titanium spec, the new one has a few issues but it's all stuff i knew about when buying it, it goes in tomorrow for both timing belts to be done, oh didn't i say? Oh yeah Ford's in their infinite wisdom decided to replace a perfectly good lower chain drive from the crank to the high pressure fuel pump, with a wet belt setup which apparently is lifed at 125k or 120months whichever is soonest, huge thanks to both bungz and twing for telling me of the issues and providing me with the proof the car has the lower wet belt as no one else, not even Ford's, were interested in finding the information for me, i have no proof it's been done so it's going in to a Ford specialist for both belts, a water pump, engine flush and oil and filter change, for the even more eyewatering price of £935, but that is somewhat better than the £1280 Ford want just for the two belts!!!!
So a little caparison of them side by side.
And a couple of the car it's self.
Plans are to replace the drivers side engine mount, lower torque mount, lower control arms, droplinks and do an EGR blank, next year before we head off to Scotland i'll get the DMF and clutch done. sorry if you're bored but i intend to try and keep this updated, as much for my own benefit as anything else!!!
Quite different to be honest, the EGR blank brings the torque in from around 1300rpm (old car) whereas standard it's around 1700rpm (new car), it's also a smoother delivery, the new one is noisier than the old because it's an estate, but the seats are more supportive and a bit more comfortable, the steering's lighter on the new one and the driver information system better. I'm hoping that once I've done the EGR blank on this one it'll respond the same!!!
Nice work!
Had a Mark 1 1.8TDCI Focus for 4 years. Was fun to drive and nippy too after the obligatory remap (Celtic Tuning - bit aggressive but fun). Didn't get round to the EGR blanking though I did fit a bigger air scoop (from the ST170 model) to the airbox and removed the restrictive small bore pipe between the turbo and inlet manifold. ISTR the rubber bellows pipe to the intercooler used to develop leaks as well - replaced mine. A friend's TDCI also blew the intercooler - the core was deformed out of shape...
Sold due to fear of possible fuel pump/DMF/turbo/injector problems but regretted it afterwards after buying a dog of a Seat Leon TDI to replace it!
The 1.8 diesel engine gets a slagging, being based on the '80s 1.6 used in the Escort, but Ford developed it well for the Focus and it was quick and economical IMO (and post remap).
Had a Mark 1 1.8TDCI Focus for 4 years. Was fun to drive and nippy too after the obligatory remap (Celtic Tuning - bit aggressive but fun). Didn't get round to the EGR blanking though I did fit a bigger air scoop (from the ST170 model) to the airbox and removed the restrictive small bore pipe between the turbo and inlet manifold. ISTR the rubber bellows pipe to the intercooler used to develop leaks as well - replaced mine. A friend's TDCI also blew the intercooler - the core was deformed out of shape...
Sold due to fear of possible fuel pump/DMF/turbo/injector problems but regretted it afterwards after buying a dog of a Seat Leon TDI to replace it!
The 1.8 diesel engine gets a slagging, being based on the '80s 1.6 used in the Escort, but Ford developed it well for the Focus and it was quick and economical IMO (and post remap).
Thanks for the post BGarside, I've been pondering remapping our older 1.8TDCI, it's already good fun considering what it is but I do wonder how far it could be taken!!!
Well I've got the new(old) one back from the Ford specialist and I must say I'm very happy with the service from them, they said allow a couple of days to do it and did it in 24hours!!! Returned her all valeted and shiny, book stamped for the oil change and separately for the belts change too!!! Need to start saving now for the dreaded DMF/clutch/master cylinder before we go to Scotland next year!!!
Well I've got the new(old) one back from the Ford specialist and I must say I'm very happy with the service from them, they said allow a couple of days to do it and did it in 24hours!!! Returned her all valeted and shiny, book stamped for the oil change and separately for the belts change too!!! Need to start saving now for the dreaded DMF/clutch/master cylinder before we go to Scotland next year!!!
Lovely is that. Think its best to start with a nice clean one rather than trying to polish a turd / neglected one with these.
You are already familiar with all the bits that will go like the thermostat leaks and the glow plugs etc.
Not sure if Focuses suffer the same but Mondeos of the similar age need the power steering fluid watching. The rack seals wear which releases this horrid black gack that blocks the reservoir filter. This then starves the power steering pump and rack and helps kill them.
The fluid should be a dark green, have a check. If it isn't it needs changing. A new res is only about £20 and has a new filter in it. I presume it will be a similar affair in a focus.
WSS-M2C204-A2 is the fluid.
Bit of a faff but a new rack is not cheap to have fitted.
Best of luck.
You are already familiar with all the bits that will go like the thermostat leaks and the glow plugs etc.
Not sure if Focuses suffer the same but Mondeos of the similar age need the power steering fluid watching. The rack seals wear which releases this horrid black gack that blocks the reservoir filter. This then starves the power steering pump and rack and helps kill them.
The fluid should be a dark green, have a check. If it isn't it needs changing. A new res is only about £20 and has a new filter in it. I presume it will be a similar affair in a focus.
WSS-M2C204-A2 is the fluid.
Bit of a faff but a new rack is not cheap to have fitted.
Best of luck.
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