Hi all!

Newbie here, just purchased a 16 plate Fiesta Titanium 1.0 EcoBoost 100.

I've not yet received it, I've given Cinch a go for the first time due to their generous part exchange for my current car, so it will be arriving later this week.

After reading about the various problems with the EcoBoost (particularly the long thread regarding turbo coolant pipes), I am wondering whether I should just get the turbo replaced for peace of mind?

While my car hasn't arrived yet, I can clearly see in the photos evidence of rust on the pipes. (Why did I still go ahead and buy it? It was the only Titanium in my price range).

Drastic I know, but since Cinch has quite a comprehensive warranty, I may see if they are willing to cover some costs. (If not I may just pay for it myself for peace of mind).

Hendy Ford has given me a quote of just under £1,400 for a new turbo fitment.

What are your thoughts?

 

Secondly, I noticed the turbo cover has this staining on it, while others for sale on Cinch do not.

Is this weathering/natural or something to be worried about?

From what I can make out from the photo the coolant pipes to the turbo look pretty decent so I’d not worry until you have to. Just keep an eye on things.

You might find that a valeter in preparation for marketing has sprayed the turbo heat shield with TFR and of the heat shield was warm it would have dried and tarnished the finish. If you had the car / under bonnet area professionally cleaned / detailed that marking could be reduced but TFR staining is a pain to remove. 

1 hour ago, RadicalRooster said:

Hi all!

Newbie here, just purchased a 16 plate Fiesta Titanium 1.0 EcoBoost 100.

I've not yet received it, I've given Cinch a go for the first time due to their generous part exchange for my current car, so it will be arriving later this week.

After reading about the various problems with the EcoBoost (particularly the long thread regarding turbo coolant pipes), I am wondering whether I should just get the turbo replaced for peace of mind?

While my car hasn't arrived yet, I can clearly see in the photos evidence of rust on the pipes. (Why did I still go ahead and buy it? It was the only Titanium in my price range).

Drastic I know, but since Cinch has quite a comprehensive warranty, I may see if they are willing to cover some costs. (If not I may just pay for it myself for peace of mind).

Hendy Ford has given me a quote of just under £1,400 for a new turbo fitment.

What are your thoughts?

 

Secondly, I noticed the turbo cover has this staining on it, while others for sale on Cinch do not.

Is this weathering/natural or something to be worried about?

The turbos are the least of it on these cars, the wet belt is the major thing on these engines if the oil wasn't changed yearly and for the correct oil

14 minutes ago, Aldridge Andy said:

From what I can make out from the photo the coolant pipes to the turbo look pretty decent so I’d not worry until you have to. Just keep an eye on things.

You might find that a valeter in preparation for marketing has sprayed the turbo heat shield with TFR and of the heat shield was warm it would have dried and tarnished the finish. If you had the car / under bonnet area professionally cleaned / detailed that marking could be reduced but TFR staining is a pain to remove. 

Thanks for your comment, Andy!

Here is a clearer picture of the pipes (although, not 'that' clear).

It looks like quite a bit of rust on the 'bend' of the top pipe and close to the turbo of the bottom pipe.

I'm not too worried about the finish of the heat shield, I was just worried it may have been dry coolant!

I don’t think you have any immediate worry so keep your money safely in your bank for the time being.

What I would do is give the engine bay a good clean and those coolant pipes to the turbo, even if you just wipe / clean those pipes with a cloth moistened with WD-40. Then just keep an eye on things. 

The beauty of a clean engine bay is that it’s much easier to spot leaks etc Then if anything should happen within the warranty period then you have that to fall back on. 

18 minutes ago, Aldridge Andy said:

I don’t think you have any immediate worry so keep your money safely in your bank for the time being.

What I would do is give the engine bay a good clean and those coolant pipes to the turbo, even if you just wipe / clean those pipes with a cloth moistened with WD-40. Then just keep an eye on things. 

The beauty of a clean engine bay is that it’s much easier to spot leaks etc Then if anything should happen within the warranty period then you have that to fall back on. 

That is a very good point, thank you...

The great thing about Cinch is they do give 90 days warranty and 14 days to hand back the car.

If something were to go wrong, I suspect it would be better to just 'let it' go wrong so that Cinch can pick up the bill.

I know I am jumping the gun a little here, but after two different cars blowing their head gaskets in the last 4 months despite annual servicing, regular fluid checks and general care (both were Vauxhalls mind!) I would very much like to have a reliable car that doesn't require me worrying every trip!

Just now, RadicalRooster said:

I would very much like to have a reliable car that doesn't require me worrying every trip!

Honestly, I'd forget about the 1.0 EcoBoost and look elsewhere.  

I know the feeling of constantly worrying about common faults on cars.  You're already worrying about it.  Not worth the stress imo.

Just seen the picture of the turbo pipes and they don't look too bad to me.   I've seen very much worse.

Those turbo pipes just need the rust sanding off and treat the pipes with an anti-corrosion high temp paint.

 

The ecoboosts only go ecoboom mostly when they haven't had proper maintenance, the failure rates of them would be far lower if people actually maintained them instead of ignoring service schedules like the topic on here where people were debating if it was worth changing the wet belt or leaving it be despite service intervals

23 minutes ago, Neb_engineer said:

The ecoboosts only go ecoboom mostly when they haven't had proper maintenance, the failure rates of them would be far lower if people actually maintained them instead of ignoring service schedules like the topic on here where people were debating if it was worth changing the wet belt or leaving it be despite service intervals

Fair points there, though the early Focus degas hose issue was poor design/manufacture rather than poor maintenance. 

It would be interesting to see accurate figures (do they exist anywhere I wonder?) showing the %age of failures out of the total of 3 cylinder ecoboosts sold.

Possibly it would seem less of an issue if Ford quietly dealt with problems rather than letting threads like this build up. Some other manufacturers (including "premium brands") have had serious issues on certain models but they were quietly dealt with. I heard from one friend in the motor trade that at one point BMW were replacing whole 6 cylinder engines while cars were in for service or minor recalls without the owners even being aware. 

In a way, Ford kind of shot themselves in the foot by being at the forefront of the current downsizing trend without sufficiently emphasising that these were much more complicated units compared to what had gone before and needed servicing accordingly. I guess many of us did (and possibly still do) have a "it's only a Ford" attitude.

I often compare it with the terrible reputation of the Hillman Imp which had some poor design features (remember the pneumatic accelerator?) but mainly suffered poor maintenance because it was vastly more sophisticated than the contemporary BMC A-Series and Ford offerings that customers were used to.

 

 

53 minutes ago, Neb_engineer said:

The ecoboosts only go ecoboom mostly when they haven't had proper maintenance, the failure rates of them would be far lower if people actually maintained them instead of ignoring service schedules like the topic on here where people were debating if it was worth changing the wet belt or leaving it be despite service intervals

Thanks for your reply.

This one has had 3 recorded services, with a gap over Covid, which isn’t ideal. I’ve booked it in for a full service once it’s been delivered.

During my ownership I’ll be sure to have oil changes every year.

My car does come with a Cinch service plan, who I believe are partnered with Halfords. I’ve never used Halfords for servicing, would they know what their doing and use the correct oil?

13 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Fair points there, though the early Focus degas hose issue was poor design/manufacture rather than poor maintenance. 

It would be interesting to see accurate figures (do they exist anywhere I wonder?) showing the %age of failures out of the total of 3 cylinder ecoboosts sold.

Possibly it would seem less of an issue if Ford quietly dealt with problems rather than letting threads like this build up. Some other manufacturers (including "premium brands") have had serious issues on certain models but they were quietly dealt with. I heard from one friend in the motor trade that at one point BMW were replacing whole 6 cylinder engines while cars were in for service or minor recalls without the owners even being aware. 

In a way, Ford kind of shot themselves in the foot by being at the forefront of the current downsizing trend without sufficiently emphasising that these were much more complicated units compared to what had gone before and needed servicing accordingly. I guess many of us did (and possibly still do) have a "it's only a Ford" attitude.

I often compare it with the terrible reputation of the Hillman Imp which had some poor design features (remember the pneumatic accelerator?) but mainly suffered poor maintenance because it was vastly more sophisticated than the contemporary BMC A-Series and Ford offerings that customers were used to.

 

 

I can see your point entirely!

Especially being a popular brand with such high volumes of sales.

Of course if you look for problems you will find them, but I too would be interested in the actual figures of failures.

Even 1% would be quite high (just due to the volume of sales) but since Fords are owned by such a variety of people, you can imagine a wide variety of how cars are cared for.

For example on this forum, it seems plenty have rusted turbo coolant pipes, but how many on this forum have had them actually fail?

11 hours ago, RadicalRooster said:

My car does come with a Cinch service plan, who I believe are partnered with Halfords. I’ve never used Halfords for servicing, would they know what their doing and use the correct oil?

You'll always get varying reviews across different locations with any franchise.  Personally, I'd be checking the exact oil that they would use and confirming that they will not be using an oil flush, before allowing them anywhere near a 1.0 EcoBoost.

On 4/4/2022 at 10:05 PM, RadicalRooster said:

Thanks for your reply.

This one has had 3 recorded services, with a gap over Covid, which isn’t ideal. I’ve booked it in for a full service once it’s been delivered.

During my ownership I’ll be sure to have oil changes every year.

My car does come with a Cinch service plan, who I believe are partnered with Halfords. I’ve never used Halfords for servicing, would they know what their doing and use the correct oil?

Personally I'd keep well away from Halfords for servicing (considering I don't even have a high maintenance ford engine, it's a 1.25L) the amount of horror stories from people using Halfords for that especially as you don't actually have to be a fully trained mechanic to work in the autocenter. I remember getting my sister's battery changed at Halfords and it took 5 Halfords employees to do it (it's normally a 1 person job)

7 minutes ago, Neb_engineer said:

Personally I'd keep well away from Halfords for servicing (considering I don't even have a high maintenance ford engine, it's a 1.25L) the amount of horror stories from people using Halfords for that especially as you don't actually have to be a fully trained mechanic to work in the autocenter. I remember getting my sister's battery changed at Halfords and it took 5 Halfords employees to do it (it's normally a 1 person job)

Halfords Autocentre is different from the Halfords stores 'fitting' service.  It's actually swallowed up several other chains now, many of those had decent techs working in them for years before the Halfords name was added.

Yes but the halfords servicing is done through halfords autocenter

Small update...

Received the car, really impressed, enjoying the torque, very happy in general.

Attached is a better photo of the turbo coolant pipes, I guess not the worst but if they've gotten this bad in six years, I am worried how much more they will corrode in another two or three.

Unfortunately, despite Cinch insisting my part-exchange has zero warning lights on the dash, my Fiesta has a TPMS warning which isn't ideal. Also what sounds like a bearing that has gone and an annoying rattle from the engine bay at 70mph.

I've booked in with Hendy Ford under warranty to 'investigate' but I am not holding my breath, I can see a warranty battle commencing. 'It's not actually broken though, sir'.

For anyone thinking of buying online, the process with Cinch has been very easy and the customer service is some of the best I've ever experienced, but despite claiming a 225 point check and the delivery driver driving the car to my house (not using a truck to deliver as I initially thought), I'd say it's a but disappointing none of these issues were picked up (or they were and they just kept quiet).

Why not send it back with the 14 day cooling off period? The terms say you aren't allowed to do more than 250 miles in 14 days, I've already done 300+ unfortunately.

35 minutes ago, RadicalRooster said:

but despite claiming a 225 point check

Yes they did 225 checks and found a number of problems. They never said they would do anything about them.

It's quite like many of the Ford 'service's' where they do a 50 point check all included in the price. People get the idea that means they've actually checked an adjusted things like a handbrake cable.

12 minutes ago, unofix said:

Yes they did 225 checks and found a number of problems. They never said they would do anything about them.

It's quite like many of the Ford 'service's' where they do a 50 point check all included in the price. People get the idea that means they've actually checked an adjusted things like a handbrake cable.

That's a good point...

Marketing wise I suppose it builds trust and makes the consumer feel the product they are selling is in a good state of repair.

I've had those 'health check' sheets before with the red, amber and green columns - I suppose the idea with those is to get you to spend money due to anything they find during the check.

Yet as the customer spending the money, should my part-ex have any warning lights then they wouldn't touch it.

Like many things, I feel the favour is balanced more towards the seller than the consumer. Shame.

Seeing the clearer picture of the turbo pipes, I'd certainly get something done there, hopefully at Cinch's or Ford's expense. The top one in particular looks to have gone quite deep.

36 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Seeing the clearer picture of the turbo pipes, I'd certainly get something done there, hopefully at Cinch's or Ford's expense. The top one in particular looks to have gone quite deep.

Many thanks - That was my thoughts as well.

I asked Cinch - 'If Ford decide it's not worth fixing, and then the turbo or engine fails, will Cinch be paying for that since I made you aware of the issue?'

Their response has always been a bit vague along the lines of - 'Well you've let us know early on, so that would work in your favour.'

This brings me full circle to the start of this post - If I can't get this fixed under warranty (which I am determined to do), is it worth spending out now on a new turbo rather than potentially a new engine later?

A risk I know... My thoughts are anything wet belt related that may be more of a risk and a weaker point would be covered anyway so...

I've been shocked by the state of approved used cars at main dealers, let alone the ones at car supermarkets.  I too was drawn in by the 'million point check' claims, which I now believe to be just marketing rubbish!  Reality is, they're handling hundreds of cars a day with low profit margins, they can't be too fussy.

Did Cinch replace the tyres out of interested?  They may have broken the TPMS sensor after taking the car in.

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I've been shocked by the state of approved used cars at main dealers, let alone the ones at car supermarkets.  I too was drawn in by the 'million point check' claims, which I now believe to be just marketing rubbish!  Reality is, they're handling hundreds of cars a day with low profit margins, they can't be too fussy.

Did Cinch replace the tyres out of interested?  They may have broken the TPMS sensor after taking the car in.

Cinch didn't mention anything about changing tyres - There's one ancient Continental on the rear, the other three are all different odd-sounding cheapo makes (I will get all four replaced when I get these other bits fixed).

When getting new tyres, where is the best place to go that won't break the TPMS sensors?

3 minutes ago, RadicalRooster said:

Cinch didn't mention anything about changing tyres - There's one ancient Continental on the rear, the other three are all different odd-sounding cheapo makes (I will get all four replaced when I get these other bits fixed).

When getting new tyres, where is the best place to go that won't break the TPMS sensors?

The sensors can just break unfortunately.  Nowhere is 100% 'safe', but you might be better off going to a local independent who can take a bit of time over them, rather than a chain store who are doing everything as quickly as possible.  Most tyre shops now have signs indicating that they don't take any responsibility for damaged sensors.