Advice on short journeys and Gearbox reliability

[602gsrb]

This is my 1st post here so I hope it is the right place - Mods, if not, please let me know and delete or move it.

I do very little miles now since lock down due to working from home.  We have to have a 7 seater as we have 4 kids and it needs to have a good size boot as we have buggies, cases etc when we go away.  Mine is the family bus, whist my wife drives an electric MG ZS daily.  We also need Automatic due to long term ankle issue.

I am looking at an early Mk4 (2017) 2.0L TDCI 150BHP Zetec with Powershift and 96K miles (full service history) 

As the family bus, the majority of journeys are less than 2 miles round trip and include multiple stops.  Home to childminders, to primary school and then secondary school before home again. The same again in the evening with the added stops of Football/swimming.....  As such, it is rare that they engine gets particularly hot.

My questions are:

1 - How well does the Galaxy DPF cope with this sort of driving practice?  I had a Discovery sport before which broke down twice in under 18 moths due to the DPF being blocked, but they are renowned for the software saying they are blocked when they are not and on both occasions the dealer was able to resolve with a forced regen and a software update.  Do Ford make a petrol Mk4?  Budget isn't great at around 10K, and no petrols are coming up in my searches, but would this be a better option than the diesel?

2 - Powershift gearbox.  I've heard all the horror stories, and had a C-max 2012 which seemed to slip the clutch and was a little clunky to take up drive at times and had serious issues getting anyone to look at it locally Nearest one was Bristol that would consider looking at it - over 110 miles away) so have moved it on and am now a little wary of the Powershift box although after a Gearbox service it did change a lot more smoothly and was lovely to drive. Have the gearboxes got any more reliable in the 5 years since our C-max was built or are they still the same and I need to be careful to get one with full service history for the box too.  If a more reliable box is now in use - when was it introduced please?

3 - is there anything in particular I should be wary of when buying a Mk4 or even late Mk3 galaxy?

Thanks in advance anyone with the knowledge to help a newbie out

L

 

 

 

 

[macaulays]

Hi 602gsrb, 

I can’t comment on the more technical aspects of your query but, from my personal experience of having completed around 12,000 miles in a high urban mileage (ex taxi) 2017 Galaxy with my usage not entirely dissimilar to yours (most journeys c. 3-4 miles albeit a chunk at A road speed rather than all town) I haven’t seen any issues manifest as yet with either dpf or powershift. The car had full service history when I bought it which included the rarely completed gearbox oil and filter changes which I continued as it would have been due one shortly by mileage if not by time.

 

Fingers crossed things continue in this vein! 
 

Very pleased with the car overall so far - hope you manage to identify a decent one if it works for you.

 

Sandy