Hi All, Starting New Focus Project

[Acid House 1988]

Hello :-)

Just thought I’d take some time to introduce myself on here, I’m new to the forum but not new to Fords having owned them all my life.

Now in my mid-fifties I’ve owned a MK4 & MK6 Escort, Sierra XR4i, a MK1 & MK2 Focus and I’ve just acquired my latest, a MK3 Focus 1.0L Ecoboost as my next “project” car...

Not looking to do anything too fancy, just want to make it look good inside and out with a few additional mods for a comfortable ride. (sound deadening will certainly be on the list then)

Hope I can get some good tips and advice along the way from you guys and hopefully I can make some useful contributions myself.

[unofix]

Hi Adam and welcome to the Ford Owners Club 👍

The very first thing I'd be doing would be to get the wet timing belt changed !!! They are due to be changed at 10 years or 150,000 miles which ever comes first, but the list of people on this fourm who's engine has failed with mileage under 100,000 is getting longer by the day.

 

[Acid House 1988]

Thanks, I'll certainly look into that, the car has done 57,000 miles, just been in for service and had all the coolant system an hoses replaced under the Ford recall program, I'll be getting new brake pads in the next couple of month so will tag on that little job when I get that done.

[Acid House 1988]

Just as follow up to that, I've previously changed the timing belt around the 50-60,000 mile mark on all my previous Fords, so reckon this one is due if I'm following following usual protocol!

[dezwez]

Hi welcome

[Acid House 1988]

Thanks! :-)

[pcaouolte]

The timing belt change on the 1.0 Ecoboost is quite a bit more involved and expensive than cars without a wet belt. My Ford dealer mentioned 10 hours and more than £1k to get it done on my previous 2012 1.0 Ecoboost. I can't remember the exact figure because my clutch disintegrated at 75k miles and put a hole through the gearbox so I moved on to a newer car rather than paying for a gearbox, clutch and wet belt in the old one.

[Acid House 1988]

Useful information there Paul, I'm going to make a few enquiries on this over the weekend. 👍 

[unofix]

Hi Adam, yes the replacment 'Wet' timing belt is about £1000 which tends to be why cars that are getting near to replacment date are cheaper to buy than those that might be older but have already had the belt replaced.

I think Ford have been over optmistic saying 150000 miles or 10 years.

In my opinion 90000 or 8 years would have been a safer option. I can't see the point of replacing the belt at the time Ford say, as for most cars by the time they hit 150000 miles or 10 years of age they are probably already 70 to 80% of there way through expected life.

[Acid House 1988]

Good point Uno, just been out in my lunch hour to the local garage round the corner and had a quick chat about it. He's going to give  me a an approximate quote after the weekend so I'll put this on the thread when I know more. But yeah, big job, the sump has to come off and everything so it's pretty much a major stripdown. A pity I didn't know about this previously as the engine has just had one major overhaul to solve the coolant issue on the Ford recall program.