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Main Dealer Buying Tips?


TomsFocus
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Mine is a 17 plate and was called titanium navigation.

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Thanks very much....... Mmmm?  It's July 2017 I cross checked with ETIS and ithas an impressive list included, however I just thought the 5 spoke alloys looked odd up against an appearance pack.

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Mine is April 2017 and has 10 spoke

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navigator dropped as nav became standard on them. even the zetecs seem to have nav as standard now. 

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5 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

I've just remembered you had DPF issues on the Mk2...  Was that just mileage related at ~80k or so on the Eolys DPF?  The cDPF should last longer but even they don't last forever, you'll have to replace it at some point, won't get away with removal under the new MOT regs. :unsure: 

Yes, mileage related at about 85k rather than lack of open road driving.  It was the older Eloys fluid one but if the newer systems are more reliable and robust then that wouldn't be an issue for me.

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22 hours ago, Les Focus said:

Looking for some advice please., I plan to buy from a Trust Ford dealer too but can't decide on whether it should be 1.5 diesel or 1 litre eco boost petrol. In Ireland you pay extra duty when importing if the car is petrol and has higher co2 emissions, it's also more expensive to tax. But  is the petrol variant the better one from the point of view of day to day driving?. I have a diesel Titanium and am happy with the fuel economy but wonder are we being scared off from buying diesels.?

You will hear horror stories for either i.e. Talking to an AA guy today who said avoid 1.0 ecoboost like the plague.

It really depends on how and where you drive, and what you carry.  I often travel with a load of camping gear and 4 passengers. The 1.0 ecoboost just doesn't cut it and the MPG is diar.

Best to drive both and see if one is more appealing than the other and weigh up any running cost factors.

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On 8/12/2018 at 8:17 PM, Pebbleheed said:

I recently sold my 2012 Focus Ecoboost and bought a 2015 ecoboost. 

I used two dealers. The first is a very big chain and completely tried to rip me off. The second is also big and was amazing. 

So based on my experience I would recommend, in fact I’d beg you for your own well being, to NOT buy from Evans Halshaw. They are incredibly bad and have caused me over a month of stress chasing my refund. I have £7k back but still owes hundreds and chasing it up constantly with nobody taking my calls or replying to emails. I had to use a Solicitor to get my £7k back too. 

In addition to the above, my partner bought a fiesta from them a few years ago. A different branch. They promised her a second key and a service book. Neither ever arrived. Sadly this was before she was with me so they got away with it. 

My neighbours daughter bought a car from them. She’s still chasing up repairs after a couple of months of owning it and hates the car as well as them. 

And if you look at their twitter account and check out the ‘mentions’ where other people tweet them you’ll see their service is shocking with common complaints being failure to provide refunds and lack of contact. 

The online reviews are also shocking. 

And the biggie - when I mentioned being a member of this forum while on a test drive, the salesman - Greg - made a comment that wasn’t very complementary towards it. I quickly realised Greg was a *****....

So my advice re buying from a dealer is to AVOID EVANS HALSHAW. 

The second dealer I went to was Bristol Street Morors. It was a totally different experience and I strongly recommend them. 

Good luck!

Evans Halshaw are a total shower, just take a look at the reviews for any branch you like on Autotrader, most branches struggle to get above 1 star, even the pics for half the cars don't look like they've been properly prepared i.e. not spotless looking.  Considering they ain't selling £500 15 year old bangers they really should be ashamed.

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Yep, preparation is terrible there. 

My car from them had food remains in the car and stains hidden by a closed door. 

Shocking. 

The car I got after from another dealer was spotless and perfect. 

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17 hours ago, iantt said:

checked my trade value on my 1.0. £4K !!  i will be keeping mine until either one dies . me or the car. lol 

just had a calc and thats £130 a month depreciation . thats nearly pcp payments on a brand new one. i can see why some people pcp cars. i can pcp a focus st line for £199 deposit and £199 a month. not that im going to. 

Is that PCP price through privilege scheme?  The issue I think you'd have with PCP is mileage, it's like 9k a year then you have to pay extra if you go over.  It does work out well for a lot of people though, tbh I probably would do PCP on a new car if I could work full time.

17 hours ago, Pebbleheed said:

The trade value on my old 2012 ecoboost was low too. However it was still able to get me a decent price on a private sale.

I’d never trade in. You don’t get a great deal normally unless there’s a specific event in. 

Private selling is a ball ache but it’s better than trading in if you have the patience for it. 

Private selling these days is a lot harder than it used to be.  Patience isn't a strong point of mine but I've always private sold so far, however recently it's taken months to sell anything and the prices aren't any better than trade in, especially when you add the fees for eBay or Autotrader etc.  I bought my current stop gap car under trade price, expecting to trade it in when I get the next car, private just isn't worth it any more.

15 hours ago, Albert27 said:

Hi Tom,

After I bought my mk3 from an independent car supermarket in December, I noticed that for the same car 4 months later they were asking £500 + more for same spec.  I can't imagine too many people splash the cash in December so maybe a good time to buy if you can wait until then that is lol!

Any particular reason you're going main dealer?  I'm guessing you'll pay a premium for that.  The place we got ours was independent offering extended warranties etc and it was fixed prices but very verey competitive. Car hasn't missed a beat (bar a bit of coolant leaking which I'm yet to figure where it's coming from).  The reviews this place had were excellent as I'm very particular where I buy from.

Going main dealer for 2 reasons.  First being I want some manufacturer warranty on the car, even if it's just a month, to get everything sorted under warranty, very few cars under 3 years old away from main dealers.  Second being the main dealers get the best cars.  Indy dealers buy from auctions or take the cars that aren't good enough to go on the MD forecourts.  I am off to an auction this morning as it happens, not intending to buy but there are several Fords in this auction direct from the dealer, I'm interested to see condition and what price they go for, before getting to the indy dealers.  I haven't had much luck buying from indy dealers in the past personally, cars were just as bad as if they'd been private sale but paid a lot more for them...

Hmm, I thought a lot of people did buy cars in December, mostly as Christmas presents or ready for the new year.  There's no real rush to buy however my current car is a potential ticking time bomb with the DPF/EGR/DMF etc lol.  (It's just a stop gap so I could get the money back from the Mk3).  My mileage will also drop again from October when the weather gets worse and there aren't any weekend events to go, so the DPF will really be suffering from then.  Plus part of the reason for going back to a Focus is because I have a nearly new set of wet weather tyres on a set of Focus alloys and the heated screen etc makes for a much better winter car.

14 hours ago, Les Focus said:

Thanks very much....... Mmmm?  It's July 2017 I cross checked with ETIS and ithas an impressive list included, however I just thought the 5 spoke alloys looked odd up against an appearance pack.

I think the 5 spoke alloys were part of the appearance pack?  They're the 17" ones with 'slashed' spokes right?  The standard Titanium comes with the 10 spoke 16" alloys.  

10 hours ago, 1979Damian said:

Evans Halshaw are a total shower, just take a look at the reviews for any branch you like on Autotrader, most branches struggle to get above 1 star, even the pics for half the cars don't look like they've been properly prepared i.e. not spotless looking.  Considering they ain't selling £500 15 year old bangers they really should be ashamed.

Cars never do seem to be prepped well these days, thought it was just me being fussy!! The local dealer here gets fantastic reviews but even their cars aren't prepped properly.  They're often covered in bush scratches down the nearside when they should be machine polished ready for the new owner imo.  And the seats are always dirty when they should be wet vacced, though that's partly the fault of the cloth seats, why isn't full leather standard in Titaniums already? :laugh: 

One example here, one of the few local dealer cars near my budget but I don't want to know what that is on the rear seat base! :unsure: 

https://www.johngrose.co.uk/used/ford/focus/10-ecoboost-125-titanium-navigation-5dr/ipswich/suffolk/18349488/?frch=splash#top-image

Still, not quite as bad as the seats in this car... :lol:  If you're going to wrongly advertise as a Titanium X with 10 rubbish pictures and without cleaning it first you might as well leave the rear seats picture out! :whistling:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201807198591891

 

 

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33 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

One example here, one of the few local dealer cars near my budget but I don't want to know what that is on the rear seat base!

:unsure: 

https://www.johngrose.co.uk/used/ford/focus/10-ecoboost-125-titanium-navigation-5dr/ipswich/suffolk/18349488/?frch=splash#top-image

Still, not quite as bad as the seats in this car... :lol:  If you're going to wrongly advertise as a Titanium X with 10 rubbish pictures and without cleaning it first you might as well leave the rear seats picture out! :whistling:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201807198591891

Yuk, I kept my old work tranny tipper cleaner than that 2nd car! :sick: Plus it's only a 2015 and had 3 owners (I guess 1 could have been a pre-reg i.e. Ford).

I still wouldn't be impressed with the backseat stain on the 1st car either (for the price) but at least the rest of the car generally looks clean, not like that 2nd one where the centre console/gear shift surround looks disgusting.

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those rear seats. yuk!!! even my rubber floor mats are cleaner than those seats. you need to buy a car off an ocd owner.lol 

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18 minutes ago, 1979Damian said:

(I guess 1 could have been a pre-reg i.e. Ford).

 

When I was considering a nearly new  v new, I looked at a lot of Ford MD's and Ford Direct cars less than a year old. I was shocked at the condition of the cars that had been registered to Ford. 

In the end I went with a deal from an established broker/introducer and saved over £7k on a new factory order car from a UK MD. So late nearly new wasn't worth it, especially considering the condition of some. MD Pre reg cars I looked at with no mileage were actually more expensive and lower spec - lol.

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TomsFocus - it took me a week to sell my car privately. £35 to auto trader and £15 to eBay. I got £2k more than the dealer would offer me. 

I had to put up with a few cold calls about accidents and a few idiots that wanted to part exchange but other than that it was worth it for the extra £2k. 

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I agree with going to the main dealer. 

The car I rejected from the first dealer will no longer be sold to them. It will now go to auction and they said it’s highly likely a small dealer would sell it. 

Cars that meet a certain standard tend to be sold by the main dealer. Cars that are a lower standard tend to go off individual forecourts. 

I also got a years genuine ford warranty chucked in and the offer to increase it up to three years. That’s worth more to me than a third party warranty any day. Always check the small print. Some warranties aren’t anywhere near as good. 

TomsFocus - I’d shop around a bit. I picked up a 1.0 ecoboost titanium with navigation etc for £8k recently from a main dealer. In impact blue too which I prefer colour wise and is often a more popular colour. 

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Thanks for the update on the Titanium Navigator/Titanium name change and 5 spoke alloys.  May need to be careful that I don't look a gift horse in the mouth!. Price is good for the 17 Titanium and is rated AAA condition and very low mileage.

 

 

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3 hours ago, iantt said:

those rear seats. yuk!!! even my rubber floor mats are cleaner than those seats. you need to buy a car off an ocd owner.lol 

That would be ideal...but tbf it probably still wouldn't meet my standards! :laugh: 

2 hours ago, avi said:

When I was considering a nearly new  v new, I looked at a lot of Ford MD's and Ford Direct cars less than a year old. I was shocked at the condition of the cars that had been registered to Ford. 

In the end I went with a deal from an established broker/introducer and saved over £7k on a new factory order car from a UK MD. So late nearly new wasn't worth it, especially considering the condition of some. MD Pre reg cars I looked at with no mileage were actually more expensive and lower spec - lol.

Unless they're pre-reg, Ford registered cars will either be demonstrators or courtesy cars, used by loads of people that won't care about them unfortunately.  I couldn't afford brand new, even with a £7k discount haha!

1 hour ago, Pebbleheed said:

TomsFocus - it took me a week to sell my car privately. £35 to auto trader and £15 to eBay. I got £2k more than the dealer would offer me. 

I had to put up with a few cold calls about accidents and a few idiots that wanted to part exchange but other than that it was worth it for the extra £2k. 

How did you manage that!? 😮 I'm probably just a terrible salesman then. :laugh: 

1 hour ago, Pebbleheed said:

I agree with going to the main dealer. 

The car I rejected from the first dealer will no longer be sold to them. It will now go to auction and they said it’s highly likely a small dealer would sell it. 

Cars that meet a certain standard tend to be sold by the main dealer. Cars that are a lower standard tend to go off individual forecourts. 

I also got a years genuine ford warranty chucked in and the offer to increase it up to three years. That’s worth more to me than a third party warranty any day. Always check the small print. Some warranties aren’t anywhere near as good. 

TomsFocus - I’d shop around a bit. I picked up a 1.0 ecoboost titanium with navigation etc for £8k recently from a main dealer. In impact blue too which I prefer colour wise and is often a more popular colour. 

£8k for that car??  Wouldn't even get one that cheap privately down here, damn North South divide lol! :sad: 

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I just put the advert out. Paid for new number plates and a full vallet and people wanted it. I had two fighting over it and sold it to the first with the cash. 

They’re not all that cheap up here but shopping around gets a good deal. I also travelled 70 miles on the train to pick it up which was worthwhile. And the dealer collected me from the station and bought me a drink. If you chat to them they’ll often do this. 

I always look for ex-motobility cars. They tend to be lower mileage and all the servicing and recalls are done by the company so they’re never missed or late. Not let me down so far. 

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I've just purchased my 64 plate zetec S from a ford main dealer. 

Price wise, they were actually better than our local car supermarket (availablecar). 

I ordered the car to collect the following weekend as I wanted a new ford badge fitting on the rear and a couple of marks touching up. On collection I was told that the badge hadn't been replaced as they were on back order with the supplier( great start) but it would be replaced once they were back in. Then he told me whilst the car was in the body shop one of the keys had been lost, they have ordered a new one but I will have to go back to have it programmed etc. 

The car was supposed to have been valeted. The wheels still had brake dust on them, they had just put tyre dressing on. Upon close inspection when I got home, there were bits of tar around the side skirts. It gets better.. 

The boot was dirty so I got the Hoover out and thought may aswell do the whole car, so I do the rear seats,put my hand in the pocket in the back of the seat to find lots of used tissue rags and a bank letter belonging to the previous owner. That's been valeted apparently!

Overall I'd say I found them professional whilst selling me the car, but after that, f-ing hopeless. 

 

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11 hours ago, antward91 said:

I've just purchased my 64 plate zetec S from a ford main dealer. 

Price wise, they were actually better than our local car supermarket (availablecar). 

I ordered the car to collect the following weekend as I wanted a new ford badge fitting on the rear and a couple of marks touching up. On collection I was told that the badge hadn't been replaced as they were on back order with the supplier( great start) but it would be replaced once they were back in. Then he told me whilst the car was in the body shop one of the keys had been lost, they have ordered a new one but I will have to go back to have it programmed etc. 

The car was supposed to have been valeted. The wheels still had brake dust on them, they had just put tyre dressing on. Upon close inspection when I got home, there were bits of tar around the side skirts. It gets better.. 

The boot was dirty so I got the Hoover out and thought may aswell do the whole car, so I do the rear seats,put my hand in the pocket in the back of the seat to find lots of used tissue rags and a bank letter belonging to the previous owner. That's been valeted apparently!

Overall I'd say I found them professional whilst selling me the car, but after that, f-ing hopeless. 

 

Which franchise is your dealer?  EH?  Trust?

I still don't understand why Ford won't spend a bit more making badges that actually last...we're literally advertising their brand driving around with it on the car, and it just shows their standard of build quality when the badge is cracked and faded after a year! :laugh: 

Valletting is just a quick wipe over and top vac unfortunately, it's not to be confused with detailing.  Someone mentioned about not wanting their car valletted at services on here, it's a lot more common than you might think with people that look after their paint, a valet is likely to cause more damage than if they just leave it dirty.

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10 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Which franchise is your dealer?  EH?  Trust?

I still don't understand why Ford won't spend a bit more making badges that actually last...we're literally advertising their brand driving around with it on the car, and it just shows their standard of build quality when the badge is cracked and faded after a year! :laugh: 

Valletting is just a quick wipe over and top vac unfortunately, it's not to be confused with detailing.  Someone mentioned about not wanting their car valletted at services on here, it's a lot more common than you might think with people that look after their paint, a valet is likely to cause more damage than if they just leave it dirty.

I think leaving the seat picket full of used tissues is a little extreme though lol ,I didn't mind the wheels etc being dirty as I like cleaning the car myself but the tissue thing make me feel a little sick.

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Tbf they'd probably expect seat pockets to be empty so don't check.  I've never heard of anyone putting used tissues in them lol!! :unsure:

Did you dare look under the rear bench?  :laugh:

 

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1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

Tbf they'd probably expect seat pockets to be empty so don't check.  I've never heard of anyone putting used tissues in them lol!! :unsure:

Did you dare look under the rear bench?  :laugh:

 

No me either 😂 nope and I still havnt 😂

To be fair other than the cleaning and the missplacing of the key I would probably recommend and consider using them again.

 

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