Hi all.

I am torn between what to do for the best, my situation is as follows;

I currently own a ST Line Ford Kuga 2l Diesel and we have had the car about 6 months but recently have had issues with the battery and overall had bad luck since owning the car ontop of it doing terrible MPG ( max ive had on the motorway was 36 mpg ). The car has decent room etc for our rear facing car seat for my daughter but the idea of selling the car has come up now with a loss of around £600 from us buying it 6 months ago. The cars I have narrowed it down to would be either an A3 or Ford focus 2019 or newer, with the likely option being the focus due to cheaper maintenance costs as far as im told. The 2019 or newer focus seems to have plenty of room in the back for the car seat and overall seems a decent enough car from a mph perspective and insurance, my kuga is group 25 the focus are anywhere from 12 to 17. The issue I have is I dislike the look of anything below the ST line focus and was wondering if the 1l eco boost engine is powerful enough for nipping around town, motorways but still being somewhat fun when im on my own in the car and can push a bit, i have a 2017 1l eco boost fiesta and it was sluggish and dreadful to drive 40mph+ but if I wanted to stretch to the 1.5l or 182bhp car its probably going to have over 45k miles which i have no experience with whats considered bad, ive never owned a car over 25k miles and probably only do 3k a year myself.

 

I suppose the TLDR of the above is:

Is it worth switching from a diesel if I dont drive the car long stretches, probably do 20mins a day and maybe an hour every other weekend?

Is the ST line focus a good buy and is the 125bhp option ok or is it worth going for a more used 150 or 182bhp as our budget is only £16,500.

 

Thanks, sorry if the post is all over the place.

If you don’t like the 1.0 in a fiesta, you won’t like it in the heavier Focus. 

8 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

If you don’t like the 1.0 in a fiesta, you won’t like it in the heavier Focus. 

Is it the same setup completely? I had watched a review where the driver had said it was sluggish in eco mode but perked up in sports mode which would give the best of both worlds? When I had the fiesta it struggled massively going from 40-70 for some reason.

7 minutes ago, LBUK said:

Is it the same setup completely? I had watched a review where the driver had said it was sluggish in eco mode but perked up in sports mode which would give the best of both worlds? When I had the fiesta it struggled massively going from 40-70 for some reason.

It’s the newer reversed head with cam chain in the focus with a 6 speed box, but it produces the same power and torque. Being in the right gear is much more important with the 1.0 than with the 2.0 diesel. It will be less responsive in a focus than fiesta because it’s heavier. 
 

Eco and sport only alters the throttle pedal mapping. 

28 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

It’s the newer reversed head with cam chain in the focus with a 6 speed box, but it produces the same power and torque. Being in the right gear is much more important with the 1.0 than with the 2.0 diesel. It will be less responsive in a focus than fiesta because it’s heavier. 
 

Eco and sport only alters the throttle pedal mapping. 

Looking online the best mileage 1.5l I can buy would be something like a 2019 plate with 35k miles on, what mileage would problems start occurring or would something like that generally be considered a good buy? Im not very clued up on cars

Luke, you only do 3K a year and buy/run a diesel - that's crazy, and only 36mpg. My 20 plate G20 2L petrol BMW 320 Sport averages 40 mpg round town and 46mpg when I do a 290 mile run in 4 hours! - diesels are history and a serious danger to human health anyway

1 hour ago, TrevorB said:

Luke, you only do 3K a year and buy/run a diesel - that's crazy, and only 36mpg. My 20 plate G20 2L petrol BMW 320 Sport averages 40 mpg round town and 46mpg when I do a 290 mile run in 4 hours! - diesels are history and a serious danger to human health anyway

At the time we had spoke to people with the petrol kuga and they got low 20's on the MPG so it seemed the better choice but it doesnt seem to be working out for us currently, the bloke at the garage recommended we get a petrol or face further problems down the line with our mileage

I'm looking to buy a 2019 or above focus and probably looking to get the ST line or ST line x in petrol.

My budget can get a fairly new mileage wise 1.l 125bhp car but what's the MPG like with that car and is it nippy enough or is it worth going for the 150bhp? For those with the 1.5l 150bhp, how's the MPG?

 

In general are these cars reliable enough? I plan to do around 3 to 4k miles a year at most.

 

Thanks

Auto or manual? My mum has a 2016 1.5 ecoboost Kuga manual and averages about 35 mpg on similar annual mileage. They only get low 20s when towing. I know that the auto likes to drink though. 

10 hours ago, TrevorB said:

...diesels are history and a serious danger to human health anyway

I too in this situation would suggest a 'petrol' car, but for entirely mechanical reasons, NOT because diesel is any type of danger! The extremely low emissions now on diesel cars is something even 10 years ago could only have dreamed of.

As for the 'danger to human heath', well, lets see how the mass production of 650Kg lithium ion batteries for battery cars help out for human health...

42 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Auto or manual? My mum has a 2016 1.5 ecoboost Kuga manual and averages about 35 mpg on similar annual mileage. They only get low 20s when towing. I know that the auto likes to drink though. 

Ignore the reply above that was supposed to be asked on the focus forum, not sure why it has replied here lol.

My kuga is manual but has poor MPG for some reason, not sure why I drive very "boring" but can't get it higher which is why I was looking at potentially swapping for a petrol focus for better insurance and mpg while it still being big enough for us 

2 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

I too in this situation would suggest a 'petrol' car, but for entirely mechanical reasons, NOT because diesel is any type of danger! The extremely low emissions now on diesel cars is something even 10 years ago could only have dreamed of.

As for the 'danger to human heath', well, lets see how the mass production of 650Kg lithium ion batteries for battery cars help out for human health...

The guy who swapped the battery out said the battery problem could've been down to low usage and diesel too but I'm not sure how true that is. I was aware diesels needed longer motorway runs for the filter. I think it's more than likely we will swap to petrol as we plan on keeping the car until it dies and need to spend as little as possible on things like fuel due to increasing mortgage costs 

The 2.0 is a nice but quite thirsty diesel. I got about the same mpg as you when i did similar journeys in a focus. 
 

You won’t get much better mpg from a petrol but at least you don’t have to worry about dpf and clogged injectors. You may still find the battery needs replacing more frequently though. 
 

The modern cars are quite hard on their batteries.

 

But at 3k I think you need to look at the bigger picture. That’s very little miles to worry about mpg. You’ll lose more on other things, or even changing the car. 
 

Also the reason your other post appeared here is that I merged the threads as it’s all the same topic. 

3 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

The 2.0 is a nice but quite thirsty diesel. I got about the same mpg as you when i did similar journeys in a focus. 
 

You won’t get much better mpg from a petrol but at least you don’t have to worry about dpf and clogged injectors. You may still find the battery needs replacing more frequently though. 
 

The modern cars are quite hard on their batteries.

 

But at 3k I think you need to look at the bigger picture. That’s very little miles to worry about mpg. You’ll lose more on other things, or even changing the car. 
 

Also the reason your other post appeared here is that I merged the threads as it’s all the same topic. 

Ah fair enough I thought I had gone mad.

Well we still haven't committed to anything, we've been offered enough for ours for a straight swap which is why I wanted to look for advice before doing so as I have only owned 1 car prior to this.

Is the swap to petrol worth it in the long run? 

 

I had to get rid of the diesel as it seemed to always be trying to regen, however your hour journey every fortnight should keep on top of that.

A petrol is less likely to suffer the effects of low mileage, that’s why even though they tow, my mum got the ecoboost Kuga as most of the year it’s just short trips.

A 1.5 3 pot Focus will certainly be more fun to drive than your kuga, but if the dpf isn’t causing you issues because of your fortnightly trips I don’t know if it’s a no brainer to change. It’s down to you really. Perhaps drive one and see how you feel?

I had a 125ps 1.0 in a Mk3 Focus and hated it.  Very little torque after a decade of diesel, always changing gear, could stall it easily, just not my thing at all.  Had a 150ps 1.5 in a Mk4 and liked that, that would be my preference if buying a 2019 model.

For a rough economy comparison on Mk4s, the 1.5 150 was averaging about 38mpg on my drives (expected better tbh!), and I had a 155ps 1.0 EcoBoost MHEV (not available in 2019) which averaged around 45mpg on the same roads.

As Alex says, MPG shouldn't be your biggest concern with such low mileage.  You'll be spending more on depreciation and maintenance.  Modern Fords also aren't cheap to maintain.  Main dealer labour is a bit cheaper than Audi's, but parts are more or less the same.  Servicing is about the same too, which surprised me when I moved back to a VAG car.

19 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I had a 125ps 1.0 in a Mk3 Focus and hated it.  Very little torque after a decade of diesel, always changing gear, could stall it easily, just not my thing at all.  Had a 150ps 1.5 in a Mk4 and liked that, that would be my preference if buying a 2019 model.

For a rough economy comparison on Mk4s, the 1.5 150 was averaging about 38mpg on my drives (expected better tbh!), and I had a 155ps 1.0 EcoBoost MHEV (not available in 2019) which averaged around 45mpg on the same roads.

As Alex says, MPG shouldn't be your biggest concern with such low mileage.  You'll be spending more on depreciation and maintenance.  Modern Fords also aren't cheap to maintain.  Main dealer labour is a bit cheaper than Audi's, but parts are more or less the same.  Servicing is about the same too, which surprised me when I moved back to a VAG car.

Thanks for the reply.

I was looking at insurance and MPG mainly because we plan to keep the car indefinitely so losing money on it is a given value wise for us. We would've kept the fiesta until it died too as it only had about 10k miles on but some ***** nicked it and wrote it off. 

That's surprising to hear as the A3 was on the list too but we were put off by a fair few people saying they were massively more expensive to run/maintain but I would hope our running costs would be mainly just services for now as we aren't putting heavy miles in.

We don't have to get rid of our Kuga but I was a bit put off by having to spend money on it already. Its higher insurance too but the groups make it sound worse than it is 900quid annually versus something like 550 for something like a focus. 

42 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

I had to get rid of the diesel as it seemed to always be trying to regen, however your hour journey every fortnight should keep on top of that.

A petrol is less likely to suffer the effects of low mileage, that’s why even though they tow, my mum got the ecoboost Kuga as most of the year it’s just short trips.

A 1.5 3 pot Focus will certainly be more fun to drive than your kuga, but if the dpf isn’t causing you issues because of your fortnightly trips I don’t know if it’s a no brainer to change. It’s down to you really. Perhaps drive one and see how you feel?

Yeah I think I'll book a test drive on both the 1l and 1.5l and see how it goes.

The kuga hasn't had any issues running wise that we've picked up on, we've done a few 130mile round trips on average probably every 8 weeks too which has probably helped too. 

12 minutes ago, LBUK said:

Thanks for the reply.

I was looking at insurance and MPG mainly because we plan to keep the car indefinitely so losing money on it is a given value wise for us. We would've kept the fiesta until it died too as it only had about 10k miles on but some ***** nicked it and wrote it off. 

That's surprising to hear as the A3 was on the list too but we were put off by a fair few people saying they were massively more expensive to run/maintain but I would hope our running costs would be mainly just services for now as we aren't putting heavy miles in.

We don't have to get rid of our Kuga but I was a bit put off by having to spend money on it already. Its higher insurance too but the groups make it sound worse than it is 900quid annually versus something like 550 for something like a focus. 

It's a nice idea but I don't see keeping a modern car indefinitely as financially viable nowadays.  There are so many expensive parts on them, largely for safety & emissions, that they will become economically unviable sooner than cars of even 10 years ago.

I don't like Audi's personally (having owned a couple) - somehow they take a VW base and then ruin it with a hard ride, firm seats and low profile tyres!   VW's are more my thing.  However the fixed price servicing is the same regardless of whether it's a Skoda, VW, Seat or Audi.  They use the same engines, same service parts and many of the other parts are the same too.  VW will even price match independent garages for the same services.  There will be the odd part that's Audi specific and more expensive, but that's true of all cars, there are some very expensive Ford parts as well.

Also worth noting that you'll have to replace tyres and brakes fairly often with low mileage as they perish & corrode more quickly with minimal use than wearing with heavy use.

You're probably younger than me, or in a considerably different situation, I haven't paid more than about £300 for insurance on Golfs or Focus's in the last 10 years lol.

6 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

It's a nice idea but I don't see keeping a modern car indefinitely as financially viable nowadays.  There are so many expensive parts on them, largely for safety & emissions, that they will become economically unviable sooner than cars of even 10 years ago.

I don't like Audi's personally (having owned a couple) - somehow they take a VW base and then ruin it with a hard ride, firm seats and low profile tyres!   VW's are more my thing.  However the fixed price servicing is the same regardless of whether it's a Skoda, VW, Seat or Audi.  They use the same engines, same service parts and many of the other parts are the same too.  VW will even price match independent garages for the same services.  There will be the odd part that's Audi specific and more expensive, but that's true of all cars, there are some very expensive Ford parts as well.

Also worth noting that you'll have to replace tyres and brakes fairly often with low mileage as they perish & corrode more quickly with minimal use than wearing with heavy use.

You're probably younger than me, or in a considerably different situation, I haven't paid more than about £300 for insurance on Golfs or Focus's in the last 10 years lol.

Well my insurance wasn't that bad before I claimed for my stolen car sadly I have to declare that for 5 years. I paid 300quid for the year before that! 

 

After doing some maths it looks like switching to a petrol focus or something along those lines would save me in fuel and insurance about 350 to 400quid a year but in the process with the value of the car I'd probably lose 2k on part ex. I've been offered 16 for mine but have seen similar models with more mileage for sale for 18+. 

 

I'm not entirely sure it's worth it providing that the diesel maintenance with low mileage won't be through the roof versus a petrol. 

I’ve split the emissions chat off to a separate thread as it was going off topic:

 

To add an update. 

 

We've found a car which is much cheaper than ours and would be beneficial financially albeit taking a hit in the engine side which I'll have to suck up for now it's an 18 plate focus new shape but it failed an MOT in 2022 @ 12000miles for 

Engine MIL inoperative or indicates a malfunction (8.2.1.2 (h)H

 

It passed the same day and has since done 10k miles and passed the 2023 MOT without any failed attempts, would that be something to be put off or is it safe to assume whatever the problem was is a one off and got sorted? 

11 minutes ago, LBUK said:

 

It passed the same day and has since done 10k miles and passed the 2023 MOT without any failed attempts, would that be something to be put off or is it safe to assume whatever the problem was is a one off and got sorted? 

It depends on you attitude to risk. Wouldn't bother me in the least, but the very fact you are asking the question demonstrates that something like that would concern you and you should try and get something more 'perfect'... I have never owned a totally fault free car in over 40 years.

33 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

It depends on you attitude to risk. Wouldn't bother me in the least, but the very fact you are asking the question demonstrates that something like that would concern you and you should try and get something more 'perfect'... I have never owned a totally fault free car in over 40 years.

To be honest it's more on the side of I'm not very knowledgeable with cars and don't know if that screams bad or not. If the cars done miles and passed since I would hope whatever it was had been sorted and not covered up. Googling was hit and miss though as that mot code seems quite broad 

1 hour ago, LBUK said:

To add an update. 

 

We've found a car which is much cheaper than ours and would be beneficial financially albeit taking a hit in the engine side which I'll have to suck up for now it's an 18 plate focus new shape but it failed an MOT in 2022 @ 12000miles for 

Engine MIL inoperative or indicates a malfunction (8.2.1.2 (h)H

 

It passed the same day and has since done 10k miles and passed the 2023 MOT without any failed attempts, would that be something to be put off or is it safe to assume whatever the problem was is a one off and got sorted? 

You say new shape, is it a Mk3 or Mk4? A Mk3 1.0 will have the wetbelt, I wouldn't touch a Mk3 1.0 with Engine light on.

Plus, I still don't understand, you didn't like the 1.0?