Fiesta Purchase - new Ecoboost engine

[rpe2]

Hello,

I'm soon going to be buying a car for my daughter (Fiesta or Focus).  I've read the tales of woe of the wet belt engines and plan to give them a miss.

Are the newer chain engines reliable (so far) and are there any engine or non-engine related issues I should look out for?

 

Thanks in advance.

Richard

[Eric Bloodaxe]

Hi Richard,

There's quite a lot on the subject on existing threads already if you have a good look around, this post probably sums things up:

21 hours ago, JW1982 said:

To be honest from a maintenance point of view the redesigned 1.0 ECOboost with a timing chain is not much better than the previous generation 1.0 ECOboost.

On the redesigned 1.0 ECOboost the oil pump belt is installed behind the timing chain. Changing the oil pump belt simply means that the sump, engine front cover and timing chain need to be removed to get access. Once removed it is good practice to replace the timing chain, plastic chain guides and chain tensioner.

Replacing the oil pump belt on the redesigned 1.0 ECOboost is basically just as labour intensive and expensive as replacing both the wetbelt and oil pump belt on the previous generation 1.0 ECOboost.

I suspect many future problems with these engines due to the fact that many owners and used car dealers do know that these revised engines have a timing chain but are not aware of the oil pump belt. 
 

Assuming you're looking at the most common 1.0 engines. The newer chain engines are fitted to all Mk 4 1.0 Focuses and to MHEV (mild hybrid) Mk 8 1.0 Fiestas from mid 2020. The rarer 1.5 petrol Focus Mk 4, and the Fiesta Mk 8 1.5 ST have a similar cam chain/oil pump belt arrangement but without MHEV.

There were a few "oddball" Fiestas built with the chain cam engine but without MHEV, chiefly 95ps and the odd 125 ps variant (and the 100ps version was wet belt to the end) but let's not overcomplicate things. If you're not sure about a proposed purchase you can always post a shot of the engine on here and someone will confirm what it is for you.

The oil pump belt referred to above must be replaced at 10 years or 150,000 miles maximum and is labour intensive as mentioned (6 hours +) so likely to be a 4 figure job. Not necessarily an issue if you're not keeping the car that long, provided service recommendations are followed exactly.

Engines aside, generally Mk 8 Fiestas are ok, the odd rattle has been reported but nothing drastic - it's fundamentally a facelift of previous versions.

I had a 2018 Mk 8 1.0 140 which was absolutely fault free for the 5 years I had it. In some ways, power aside, it was a better car than my current one which suffers from the general reduction in spec on later models, especially the facelift (Mk 8.5) from late 2021.

 

 

[orangecurry]

1 hour ago, rpe2 said:

Hello,

I'm soon going to be buying a car for my daughter (Fiesta or Focus).  I've read the tales of woe of the wet belt engines and plan to give them a miss.

Are you allowed to buy an older version?  I would strongly recommend the mk7 with the old-skool petrol (ULEZ free) engines.

Depending on your insurance constraints, petrol 1.6 1.4 or 1.25 have a very strong reputation for not going wrong, being at the end of the development cycle, most/all of the faults had been engineered away.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

That's a point - the 1.25 carried on longer than the others - I've seen 17 plates advertised with quite low mileages. If we are talking about a new driver, could be a good choice - fun and easy to drive, low insurance, but does need revs so lots of gearchanging practice.

[rpe2]

Thank you, all.

 

Much appreciated.

[fiestalux]

I have a 2014 Fiesta, so probably a bit on the old side for your daughter. But mine so far has been a very reliable car. If you get one of these 100hp Ecoboost variants, do check if the required maintenance has been done. Mine is sadly at the 10 year limit before the major repairs set in, which will hit about 2k Euro. These are all expected, but just costly.

Aside from these expected repairs, in 10 years I think all repairs have come to about 500 Euro... Which is not bad. However, I do keep to the service schedules.

 

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi.

If you need any help with insurance all for any vehicle you're looking at then please feel free to drop me a line.

Regards,

Dan.