Hey everyone,

I've been researching my next car (have an old banger at the moment) and am considering both the standard petrol 2020+ Focus ST Line X and the St Line X Edition (MHEV) models.

Once thing I noticed is that the MHEV models in particular seem to have depreciated quite a lot. 2020 models with low mileage (under 20k) seem to be selling for around £16k. But they would've cost over £30k new. 

I don't really know much about prices, but is this normal? At that pace, they'll be under £10K in a few years.

I've read about the batteries having known drain issues and going into deep sleep mode, and being a headache overall (need to manually charge them regularly, etc). Could this be related?

Thanks

£30k? I paid that for my late 2019 (October) ST.

I think maybe you are comparing a time of overinflated prices to the fact they are now back nearer where they should be.

Depreciation rates have been up & down over the last few years.  The pandemic years kept used values up.  But they are now starting to come down.

Also, new prices have massively increased recently due to Brexit.  A fairly basic Focus is now over £30k OTR.  I don't envy anyone buying new now.

 

For reference, my 2021 155 MHEV Vignale cost £25k new.  It had only lost ~£1000 when I sold it after the first 2 years (admittedly very low mileage covered).  It's then lost £7000 in the 3rd year according to online valuations! 😮 

Thanks for the replies! But yeah interesting stuff, I did see that all new focus now seem to start around £30k, which feels bonkers!

@TomsFocus Can I ask why you sold your MHEV? The St-line X edition seems to have all the equipment I'd like, but reading the horror stories of constant deep sleep, and having to buy extras to manually keep the MHEV battery charged sounds really annoying and if that's the case, I'd rather just go for the normal ST-line X. So hard to know if it's just one off cases on the internet or if there's something inherently wrong with them!

5 minutes ago, crumpet said:

@TomsFocus Can I ask why you sold your MHEV? The St-line X edition seems to have all the equipment I'd like, but reading the horror stories of constant deep sleep, and having to buy extras to manually keep the MHEV battery charged sounds really annoying and if that's the case, I'd rather just go for the normal ST-line X. So hard to know if it's just one off cases on the internet or if there's something inherently wrong with them!

Personal reasons.  Wasn't the cars fault, just not compatible with my health conditions.

All Mk4 Focus's have battery issues.  It's the 12v battery that's the problem, not the 48v MHEV battery.

I'd never pay that much for a Focus.

There's plenty of better cars out there

As someone who's just bought a 2020 mhev I would say from my experience that the cheaper ones are the 125hp versions, with various levels of trim and options. I test drove the 125 and the 155 back to back and found a massive difference in them. Ended up going for a 155 titanium that had a lot of options thrown on, however there was not a lot of choice for the 155 version compared to 125 models. 

Deprication I think appears more on the focus because although the OTR is around the 30k mark, they are constantly on offer from what I've seen. Preowned cars have shot up in price as far as I'm concerned. I bought my last mk3 1.6 150 ecoboost titaium focus for £8K with 11k miles on it at 4 years old in 2016. I've now changed to a mk4 155 mhev titaium focus, 3 years old and 6k miles for £16.5k so the same "level" of car has roughly doubled in price in 8 years. 

 

I've found over many years that to assume a new "mainstream" car will lose around 30% of the list price after 12 months, and 50% by the 3 year mark, is not a bad rule of thumb. The last few years -  covid, chip shortages, other supply chain issues, people starting wars, etc, etc - have been a bit crazy though.

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

It's the 12v battery that's the problem, not the 48v MHEV battery.

As on the Mk 8 Fiesta. My view is it's more the "polar bear saving" charging system, rather than the battery itself, that's the problem😀.

Quote

It's the 12v battery that's the problem, not the 48v MHEV battery.

Quote

As on the Mk 8 Fiesta. My view is it's more the "polar bear saving" charging system, rather than the battery itself, that's the problem😀.

Oh I see!! That makes me more interested in the MHEV model then.

Looking up 12v battery issues, and it seems to be a common issue on fully electric cars too 😱 Here's a video of James May talking about it on his Tesla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKwMryKqRE

On the Focus, if the 12v battery dies, what does that mean exactly? Apart from keyless entry not working, does it cause any other issues? Am I right in thinking the car would need to be jump started each time? 

 

3 hours ago, DaveT70 said:

I'd never pay that much for a Focus.

There's plenty of better cars out there

Can you share the models you're thinking of? I've looked around and the only other hatchback I found that has a design I actually like was the Mercedes A Class AMG night edition, but that one costs around £22k for a 2020 model. The Audi A1 2019 Black Edition is also nice, but also around £22k. Other than these, everything else looks quite boring to me (Golf).

1 hour ago, crumpet said:

Oh I see!! That makes me more interested in the MHEV model then.

 

Looking up 12v battery issues, and it seems to be a common issue on fully electric cars too 😱 Here's a video of James May talking about it on his Tesla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKwMryKqRE

On the Focus, if the 12v battery dies, what does that mean exactly? Apart from keyless entry not working, does it cause any other issues? Am I right in thinking the car would need to be jump started each time? 

 

If the battery goes totally flat nothing will work.  You'll have to use the manual key in the driver's door lock to open the door.  Then potentially lay across the seat and dismantle the bonnet lever to open the bonnet as the passenger door can't be opened without power.

But in most cases the battery just goes into deep sleep mode - losing keyless entry, heated screens, air conditioning etc.  The car can still be unlocked with the remote and the engine will still start in deep sleep mode.  It is designed to prevent the battery charge dropping too low to start.

21 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

If the battery goes totally flat nothing will work.  You'll have to use the manual key in the driver's door lock to open the door.  Then potentially lay across the seat and dismantle the bonnet lever to open the bonnet as the passenger door can't be opened without power.

But in most cases the battery just goes into deep sleep mode - losing keyless entry, heated screens, air conditioning etc.  The car can still be unlocked with the remote and the engine will still start in deep sleep mode.  It is designed to prevent the battery charge dropping too low to start.

Great info! Last question 😃 If it goes into deep sleep mode and you start the engine, and drive off for a little while. Does the battery get charged up again? And if so, how long before the air conditioning, etc would start working again? Thanks again!

1 hour ago, crumpet said:

Great info! Last question 😃 If it goes into deep sleep mode and you start the engine, and drive off for a little while. Does the battery get charged up again? And if so, how long before the air conditioning, etc would start working again? Thanks again!

That is how it's meant to work.  But in reality, once it's in deep sleep mode, most people find they need to use a mains powered battery charger for several hours to fully recharge again. (Ideally overnight)

Alternator charging is limited to the bare minimum for emissions purposes.  So it would take a very long drive to top it up to the required amount.

6 hours ago, crumpet said:

Does the battery get charged up again?

The maximum it would ever get charged to would be 80% and that would take a trip to the moon and back !!!!

Well that that last bit might be a bit of an overkill, just a one way trip to the moon should charge it back up to 80%  🤣

15 hours ago, crumpet said:

Does the battery get charged up again? 

If you buy a Mk 4 Focus, Mk 8 Fiesta (or most other modern ICE cars come to that) be prepared to buy a smart charger and use it regularly. At least it's good practice for when they force us to go 100% EV.😀

41 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

If you buy a Mk 4 Focus, Mk 8 Fiesta (or most other modern ICE cars come to that) be prepared to buy a smart charger and use it regularly. At least it's good practice for when they force us to go 100% EV.😀

Ouch, did not know that! That's a bit of a shocker for me really I currently have a Peugeot 308 (08 plate) and have had it for over 10 years, never had any issues. Have even had the same battery for 9 years and it has never gone flat, not once! I've never even thought about it. Even though I've been mostly doing less than 2 mile drives for the last few years. But of course it doesn't have any modern electronics, so I guess that's why.

Problem I have is I live in a flat, so don't have access to a mains from my car 🙈 Upgrading my car is not going to be as straightforward as I hoped it'd be!

Hi Chris and welcome to the forum. Why are you looking to change your car?

You have avery healthy budget. Is it a hatchback car you need or will a saloon do?

If saloon then for a fraction of your budget to me there's only one car. Lexus is250.  Or of it's because you want a hybrid then the Lexus is300h. 

Hi @tazzman600thanks 🙂

My car is just feeling a bit of banger now! Had it for 10 years so feel like it's time for an upgrade. I rented a mk4 Focus a few years ago for a long trip and it was so enjoyable, that's the main reason I was looking at them now.

Yeah, I love hatchbacks and was hoping to get a nice one that could last me another 5-10 years. Don't think a saloon or SUV is for me really, especially as I live in London! Thanks for the recommendation though, will still check it out 👍

19 minutes ago, crumpet said:

Have even had the same battery for 9 years and it has never gone flat, not once! 

Yeah, we've had our "other" car (no it's not a Porsche!😀) 10 years now and its still on its original battery (and key fob battery, for that matter). There's "progress" for you!

55 minutes ago, tazzman600 said:

Or of it's because you want a hybrid then the Lexus is300h. 

There's an awful lot of posts on Toyota/Lexus hybrid forums about 12v battery issues these days, unfortunately. The problem seems pretty widespread these days.

Tbh, I'm not sure I'd want the hassle of any car if I was living in Mayor Khan's low emission Utopia, particularly if I was mainly driving such short distances.

You're kind of right Roger about 12v battery issues with Lexus/Toyota hybrids. The main thing is its the owners who are kind of ignorant towards the 12v battery. It's actually smaller than a standard 12v battery and doesn't have the amps behind them. It's the traction battery that charges the 12v battery. 

The usage of those hybrids with the issues is because they only do short trips. Never once did I have issues with either of the 3 Lexus hybrids I had, 2x is300h and the mega machine RX450h. When I had those my trips were to work 14 miles one way and over to Leeds 35 miles one way. Therefore the 12v batteries were very well looked after by the traction battery.

2 hours ago, tazzman600 said:

The main thing is its the owners who are kind of ignorant towards the 12v battery. It's actually smaller than a standard 12v battery and doesn't have the amps behind them. It's the traction battery that charges the 12v battery. 

Yeah, I lurk on those forums as a hybrid is a possible next step longer term.  I was amazed how many owners didn't realise they still had a 12v battery in addition to the traction battery**. Same thing applies to full EVs

The message seems to be, if your pattern of usage doesn't suit the cars charging system, you're likely to have 12v battery problems irrespective of whether you've got ICE, hybrid, or full EV. 

The last car I had without the issues was a Mk 3 Leon, contemporary with the Golf 7. When I got the first Mk 8 Fiesta in 2018, the issues started. My mileage isn't that low - about 6k+ a year these days (I used to do that in 2 months, mind), but it's not a regular pattern. Our other car, mentioned earlier, only does about 1.5k but has never given a problem as it's an "old fashioned" charging system. 

(**I've even had a Toyota sales person telling me this, showing me under the bonnet of a Corolla where there was indeed no 12v battery. I had to point out to him that this was the 2.0 version and opened the boot to show him where it was. (On the 1.8 Corolla it is under the bonnet.) Exit red faced salesperson!).

 

Just goes to show. These sales reps know sweet eff aye about what they're selling 🤣

On 2/7/2024 at 4:58 PM, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Yeah, I lurk on those forums as a hybrid is a possible next step longer term.

Just been having one of my occasional "lurks" on the Toyota owners site. On the Yaris forum alone, there are over 2,500 posts on 12v battery issues. We are certainly not alone!

3 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

on the Toyota owners site. On the Yaris forum

Now I'm going to go off on a tangent as we so often do.

Today i was driving on the A1(M) in very heavy rain and massive spray being thrown up. Viability was about 4 car lengths when I suddenly realised the there was a 72 plate Toyota Yaris in front of me with no lights on. Just I was cursing the idiot, what should come sailing past us both was another Toyota Yaris, this time a 73 plate and again with no front or rear lights on !!

I thought that automatic lights was now a requirement ? Or is it like the indicators on a BMW and they are still an option on a Yaris ?

Sorry for the diversion, now back to the subject of the thread. What was it again ? 🤣