Hi all need your feedback and advice please...so my focus57 died after 6 years of great ownership. Actually it didn't die it developed an electrical fault which would of cost me 150 to get fixed and I didn't want to spend it on car that has 200k and tired. I have had 3 ford focus in last 12 years and fancied a bit of a change. Now got a mondeo 1.8tdci which is a gorgeous car but am struggling to adapt to the size and the extra mpg the does. It looks like am gonna go back to a focus and sadly the 1.8tdci is no longer an option but really(very few on 10/11 plate about?) I have spotted a mk3 1.6tdci which I think am gonna go for. I have heard so many horror stories about the 1.6tdci eg the dpf/injectors etc are they really that bad?? What do I need to do to prevent any problems with this psa/ford engine?? And also what do I need to look out for on a mk3 focus??? I cheers for reading this and thanks in advance for any advice 

From what I've read with the 1.6tdci, the younger the car the better, i.e, 2015 onwards. Make sure they have been serviced regularly using the correct oil as the earlier models were being serviced with a slightly different oil than recommended and this is what caused the build up and turbo problems. My friend has one of the 2015 1.6tdci models and has done a fair few miles since ownership with no reported problems. If you can, try and squeeze for the 1.5 diesel.

General Mk3 problems - vents under the back bumper allow water ingress causing the boot to fill up with water. I've just done the Mk3 vent mod on my wife's car as it had the same problem. The seals around the lower half of the doors peel away and hang loose - this is a known fault but can be sorted with industrial grade double sided tape. The driver's side window tends to squeak when you roll it down which is fixed by cleaning the rubbers. Brake light cluster fabric seals can sometimes fail letting water into the cabin - this is fixed by replacing / cleaning them. - this is just a few, but there are others but a quick search on here will help.

Overall, the MK3 is a nice car with a few minor problems outside of the engine department. just make sure all the seals are clean and pushed into place.

The Mk3 1.6 TDCi 8v is completely different to the Mk2/2.5 16v version.  It's quite a reliable engine tbf, turbos never really fail on them and they don't have the oil issues of the previous model.  Injectors are the main issue, but that's the same on most modern diesels due to the complex/delicate injectors needed for lower emissions.  The mapping is also pretty poor and the engine mounts are soft so you have to put up with a slightly jerky pull away and gearchange but it's not technically a fault.  They have a coated DPF (not the crap additive type of the mk2) so that should be fine for well over 100k unless you only do short runs.

Water leaks are the big mk3 issue as Tom says above.  Air con failure is also very common.  And electrical issues with the audio system, wheel controls etc.