71 replies to this topic

[adzmcp]

I work at a large ford dealership and we have attached to it a large KIA dealership one of largest in area.

[jeebowhite]

Edge, your right about the !Removed!, there old cars used to be a lot better, but for a company with great technology, its not the best when put into a car!!

adzmcp, since you attached to the kia, how many potential ford customers end up walking away with a KIA? It would be interesting to see when you have the three year dealership vs seven year!

[adzmcp]

You would be surprised not many. A lot ofpeople do still have badge in mind. That said ford has had a bad march where KIA is on fire just at our place there have sold nearly 4x more cars than us. Tonnes of sportage and piccanto. Rio is not a good seller and neither is the 7 seat people carrier. Soul sells ok and ceed sells best in 5 door form

[jeebowhite]

Not too bad then, but the fact the Ford side is suffering to the Kia side, isnt the greatest for Ford I suppose. but as you say, most people walk in with the badge in mind, so maybe the 7 year cee'd against the 3 year focus (for warranties) I guess makes no odds to most customers...

[adzmcp]

Don't get me wrong ka customers we have lost to picanto and kuga customers have been lost to sportage but we have not lost one customer looking at a Fiesta to KIA. We don't lose many focus customers either unless they drive the mk1 focus.

[hillmangimp]

This seems pretty straight forward to me. Jeebowhite bought a Focus that turned out to be not very reliable and has had enough and bought a different make car. I would have done exactly the same if it was me and I don't think a petrol Kia will give you any cause for concern.

[catch]

This seems pretty straight forward to me. Jeebowhite bought a Focus that turned out to be not very reliable and has had enough and bought a different make car. I would have done exactly the same if it was me and I don't think a petrol Kia will give you any cause for concern.

Totally agree,

Jeeb buys a 2005 reg Focus 1.6 TDCi with a fair few miles on the clock at four years old. And having owned it for 24 months, and after having to chuck a load of money at it, he loses faith in it and calls it a day.

I on the other hand buy a 2005 reg Focus 1.6 petrol, with 37,300 miles on the clock, also at four years old. After 18 months of ownership I have spent in total on repairs £26.

Well to be honest Ford should have paid for that because it was a case of the washer jet gaskets letting water into the engine compartment, then into the spark plug wells [a design fault] And to be honest you should be able to just buy and fit the two new revised gaskets separately, without having to buy two heated washer jets along with them. Then the cost would have been about £1. So it should have been a "recall" really. But as always the first build of any model is actually just a proving prototype. This is the build,on which manufactures find out what parts are not up to the job. Same will apply to the first build of the new Mk3 Focus.

Moral of the story is: Don't buy a modern four year onwards TDCi with plenty miles on the clock. If your pocket dictates you have to look in the 4 to 6 year age bracket, go petrol, besides you can buy a year younger because you avoid the diesel price premium.......simples

[hillmangimp]

Yes quite, when I had my BMW M3 I never worried about its reliability or longevity in the way that I have nagging doubts that one day my TDCI will go wrong and cost a pitful of money to put right (even though it is a non dpf model diesel injectors and DMF's are still probleamtic). Hence why at this moment in time I would NEVER buy another diesel unless I did starship mileages.

[jeebowhite]

Yeah my car was three year old with 38,000 on the clock - unfortunately I was young, Naive, and thought Ford where nice and didnt put tat into there car... And then it hit me... The guys here told me what a DPF was!

I think that the car is just a pain in the jacksey, and I clearly bought the runt of the litter - thats not to say that all Focus' are like that, but that, combined with the dealer, combined with my new found hatred of the DPF - means I cant sit in the front seat of a Focus anymore...

the thing that really did grind on me, was I popped to Ford one day and asked them to take a look and value my car as I was hoping to trade it in (didnt say I was going to get a Ford or otherwise) I was told that all the sales team were all too busy with other customers to spend two minutes looking at my car (even though I saw 2 sales reps playing spin the pen on their desk!)

That was the final straw for Ford...

Catch and many others here have bought very good cars, but then again, I think it could be as much to do with Mileage, as Catch doesnt do too many miles so that will help...

[jeebowhite]

I forgot to mention, that I took the car for a test drive on sunday and really like it, so I shall be disappearing back there on saturday and will definiately be waving bye bye to my focus... I doubt I will look back as I am driving away...

[catch]

Yeah my car was three year old with 38,000 on the clock -

You bought at three year old, sorry I thought because you said you had had it two years, and you have it down as a 2005 model, I just did the maths and come up with you buying it at four year old like me. I bought an October 2005 in October 2009, so it was fours old when bought and I've now had it eighteen months. But I got it totally wrong regarding your mileage, it was not excessive at 38k.

And your relaying of the service you had at the Ford dealers when requesting a valuation. Well I'm not surprised you will never deal with them again.

Catch and many others here have bought very good cars, but then again, I think it could be as much to do with Mileage, as Catch doesnt do too many miles so that will help...

It's not the amount of miles a car does, indeed doing a lot of short journeys on cold engines [like the wife does]does more damage to a cars engine than one covering plenty of miles on the motorway sat in fifth gear at optimised engine temperature.

Truth is you got a 1.6 TDCi dog, just like hawker who also got a 1.6 TDCi dog, only his had circa 92k on the clock. And like hawker did, your also bailing out of the TDCi and buying petrol.................If only you had both bought petrol Focus's in the first place, you would now be enjoying the best to drive car in it's class bar non without the need to keep putting your hands in your wallet.

Last four cars I've had, three have been petrol Fords, longest I had one was nine years bought at a year old previously owned by Ford, a Mk1 1.8 GLX Mondeo, all it ever needed was servicing, and tyres and brakes renewed. Followed by a Mk1 1.8 Focus Zetec, three previous owners 99 on a T plate, bought at six years old with 57,405 miles on the clock. I had 3 years nine months of trouble free motoring other than having a wheel bearing replaced at £50 all in..............then a prat wrote it off. Admittedly 10 days prior to it being written off I had the clutch and front disks and pads renewed for £400, but it had done 79K. And I would still be driving it now, over two years on. It did not so much as drink a thimble full of oil all the time I had it.

And as for the fourth car, the Volvo S40 2.0D SE [Turbo Diesel] Now don't get me wrong I enjoyed every minute I spent, and every mile I drove in it, with it's heated leather seats,it's DTSC this that and the other.It wafted me and the wife hither and dither in complete safety and luxury, but it did not engage me like the Focus does. And you know what it was the first car that I ever had, that I started to worry about it braking down, not that it ever did in the nine months I had it. But I kept reading about £1000 services, Limp Home Modes, clogged / knackered Diesel Particulate Filters, buggered Dual Mass Flywheels.....so in the end I came home to petrol.....and back to never ever giving breaking down a thought again

I forgot to mention, that I took the car for a test drive on sunday and really like it, so I shall be disappearing back there on saturday and will definiately be waving bye bye to my focus... I doubt I will look back as I am driving away.

Welcome back to petrol Jeebs, glad for you that you liked the Ceed

[jeebowhite]

Thanks Catch, and yeah I look forward to petrol. The only reason I bought diesel was 1) Diesel was cheaper for petrol... 2) I didnt know that a DPF was, so didnt even realise I was walking into a nightmare...

[catch]

The only reason I bought diesel was 1) Diesel was cheaper for petrol... 2) I didnt know that a DPF was, so didnt even realise I was walking into a nightmare...

Your not on your own there jeeb, I did the exact same for the same reason, and yes totally clueless regarding the DPF. Of course on finding out, and on my low mileage, I realised with taking the servicing of the DPF into consideration, there were no savings to be had, but a small loss. And if the DMF went as well as the DPF, I would be well into the red, so I moved it one.

Besides the clutch was biting near the top of it's travel, so I could see the clutch needing doing in possibly a few thousand miles, and it would have been double what I paid to have the Focus one replaced. The one thing I learnt about Volvo's servicing is it is undertaken whilst wearing a mask, and nothing is cheap to get replaced. Where as Fords I've always found servicing and repairs to be fairly cheap.

The one thing I do miss though is the mid range poke of the Volvo's 2.0 turbo diesel engine. I definitely don't do the overtaking I used to do, in this 1.6 Focus ............but I might just treat myself to a Mk3 petrol turbo, after somebody eats a great deal of the depreciation for me

I bet it will seem like forever the rest of this week dragging by

[jeebowhite]

Definately is! Looking forward to Saturday for sure

[jeebowhite]

Well picked the car up on saturday, was disappointed to leave the focus behind, but the Cee'd is a good car! disappointed by the loss of MPG (good ol' petrol!) and miss the turbo but overall not found anything with the car I dont like (other than a loss of 40 litres in the boot). IMHO the Cee'd (so far) seems to be as good as the focus on handling, and performance (as far as the petrol goes) so im quite happy, dont feel like I have lost too much in swapping, all in all a fairly new car for a tad over £5000 I am quite happy so far! so I would recommend the Cee'd as a potential candidate for anyone who is looking at moving away from the blue oval!