I have been looking for a ford focus ST over the past few weeks, i wanted something faster than my current 1.6 focus and didn't fancy another fiesta. i stumbled upon this:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202001055812140?price-to=5000&make=FORD&fuel-type=Petrol&maximum-badge-engine-size=2.6&maximum-mileage=70000&model=FOCUS&sort=relevance&onesearchad=New&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=Used&colour=Silver&advertising-location=at_cars&page=1

 

It's just in my price range but after checking it at www.rapidcarcheck.co.uk it has flagged up as having mileage issues and displayed this error:

 

Details: The odometer reading reduced by 26009 miles between 27 Aug 2010 and 22 Sep 2011

 

I am not sure what to do and i had my heart set on this car until seeing that, is it worth asking for more information from the seller and has anyone here seen anything like this before? Or should i move on and find something else?

Any advice appreciated, thanks.

May be worth asking the seller but whether they'll be able to explain or not I'm not sure. I took a quick look at the MOT history and the September 2011 MOT, the tester has input 'no odometer' so no mileage recorded and that's why it's showing up.

Link below for the MOT history, hopefully it works

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/?_ga=2.235295809.1178683275.1581751897-333997556.1576794997

You can check this yourself at https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/

It's throwing an error because there are two MOTs without an odometer readng, and their site is incorrect interpreting that as "0".

Otherwise the mileage appears to be ok. Sometimes errors occur inputting mileage too - my first car went from 45,000 miles to 12,000 miles back to 60,000. Someone pressed the wrong button...

The mileage seems genuine to me, in 2010 it had 26,009 in 2011 mileage wasn't recorded, then in 2012 mileage was 29,156 appears consistent. I'd buy it, in fact if you don't i may put a cheeky offer in, 😉

17 minutes ago, mozz said:

The mileage seems genuine to me, in 2010 it had 26,009 in 2011 mileage wasn't recorded, then in 2012 mileage was 29,156 appears consistent. I'd buy it, in fact if you don't i may put a cheeky offer in, 😉

3000 miles in 2 years - that's not a lot of use and less than the use before or after. It may be OK or it may be a hint at something else that's a bit "iffy" (eg sitting on driveway for a long period of time waiting to be repaired after a significant accident). It's probably nothing but I've been burnt buying used cars in the past. If you really like this car, I'd do a bit more digging before parting with any money.

ask to see the service book .. advert says full service history ..

It's legit, buy it.

1 hour ago, Dark Andy said:

3000 miles in 2 years - that's not a lot of use and less than the use before or after. It may be OK or it may be a hint at something else that's a bit "iffy" (eg sitting on driveway for a long period of time waiting to be repaired after a significant accident). It's probably nothing but I've been burnt buying used cars in the past. If you really like this car, I'd do a bit more digging before parting with any money.

I'm gonna bet it had a faulty cluster and has had a used cluster put in.  That mileage won't be genuine...  It might be near enough, it might not, but you have no way of knowing.

Also, a PFL cant still be worth £5k can it?  You can get one of the pretty facelift versions for that surely!  

Don't forget that YOU'LL have trouble selling it on too.. 🤔

Also the last V5C was issued on the 28/12/19, so the current registered keeper has only owned it for 2 months (the dealer would have filled in the yellow traders section of V5 so shouldn't trigger a new V5 being issued) you can check here on the Gov.uk website.

 

https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/VehicleFound?locale=en

MOT is out end of this month. Asking price is pretty beefy for a 14 year old car. Don't assume just because it has service history that it is correct. I'm always very cautious buying second hand cars in this way, I would want to contact the previous owner and ask questions. Buyer beware!

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

I'm gonna bet it had a faulty cluster and has had a used cluster put in.  That mileage won't be genuine...  It might be near enough, it might not, but you have no way of knowing.

Also, a PFL cant still be worth £5k can it?  You can get one of the pretty facelift versions for that surely!  

Sold my 2010 101,000 mile Focus 1.6 for £1700 last year, that's with the typical boot paint rubbing and a small amount of touched up stone chips on the rear arches. Paid £6900~ originally at 4 years old / 30000~ miles to give a rough estimate. £5k sounds a lot for a car of that age to me.

21 minutes ago, Micro said:

Sold my 2010 101,000 mile Focus 1.6 for £1700 last year, that's with the typical boot paint rubbing and a small amount of touched up stone chips on the rear arches. Paid £6900~ originally at 4 years old / 30000~ miles to give a rough estimate. £5k sounds a lot for a car of that age to me.

No offense, but a 1.6 (Zetec?) isn't in the same league as an ST so it's like comparing apples and electric oranges.  Anything with an ST or GTi badge will always hold value much better than the normal models.  This will still be worth £3.5-£4k imo, it's never going to be a financially sensible choice!  

 

1 hour ago, kingsblue said:

Also the last V5C was issued on the 28/12/19, so the current registered keeper has only owned it for 2 months (the dealer would have filled in the yellow traders section of V5 so shouldn't trigger a new V5 being issued) you can check here on the Gov.uk website.

 

https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/VehicleFound?locale=en

Ah, that's interesting.  I'd never noticed the V5 date on there before!

 

35 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Ah, that's interesting.  I'd never noticed the V5 date on there before!

No, me neither - I've looked at that service several times and not spotted it. 

it's a shame in a way the old "logbook" system, which recorded previous owners, was not perpetuated electronically in the current system. I suspect this car may have had quite a lot of owners, some of whom didn't use it much, others moved it on pretty quickly when they discovered the ST's thirst. 

 

 

 

 

Don’t judge old cars too much on the mileage. There’s plenty of other things of more importance. As a car gets older, other things get more important with regard to if it’s a good buy or not, judge it on its condition not what the mileage says. I would prefer a car that has done 100k motorway miles than 60k around town on short journeys. Of course you won’t know how it has been used.

The V5 issue date seems to be a newish thing, I noticed they added the information a few weeks ago.

I noticed the V5C last issued date when I bought my Fiesta a few weeks ago. When you had a new V5C issued to you it used to have the name and address of the previous 'keeper' on it but that's been discontinued, you can request the previous keepers details by downloading and filling in the form V888, include a cheque for £2.50 and send it to Swansea, you have to have a reasonable reason to request the information for them to give it to you. Good indication of true mileage on a vehicle is the condition of the steering wheel, gear knob, drivers seat and the pedal rubbers, that's the first things I always look at.

Forscan will pull the total distance in km from lots of different modules on the car. Most of them should match, some can be lower if the module has been replaced (or sometimes just because the software has been updated). Pick the highest reading. If the current owner wont let you connect up to get the readings then walk away.

you won't ever be buying a car from me then .. absolutely no way is a stranger going to be connecting 3rd party software to my vehicles .. yes i have forscan and other software i use myself but unless you can proove that you are qualified to use it .. on your bike

That's fine. Perhaps you would show me your readings from Forscan if I wanted to buy a vehicle from you? There are plenty of cars for sale, the slightest indication that anything is not 100% is enough for me to walk away.

I also wouldn’t allow connection to the obd port by someone else. I am sure there have been reports that some clever people have done that to enable theft at a later date. I think people could also alter something to cause a problem to try to drive the price down. The modern day version of people who put oil in the coolant and then tell you your head gasket has gone. I would happily show them using my hardware and software and not letting them take control of laptop or whatever I am using

On 2/15/2020 at 11:57 AM, TomsFocus said:

No offense, but a 1.6 (Zetec?) isn't in the same league as an ST so it's like comparing apples and electric oranges.  Anything with an ST or GTi badge will always hold value much better than the normal models.  This will still be worth £3.5-£4k imo, it's never going to be a financially sensible choice!

I missed that bit! 😂 Who owns a car and feels it's ever a financially sensible choice anyway? 

8 minutes ago, Micro said:

I missed that bit! 😂 Who owns a car and feels it's ever a financially sensible choice anyway? 

Anyone with a diesel...    No-ones buying them for their lovely sound and progressive rev range...