Need some advice for my ex please… she brought a 1.6 diesel ford focus auto.. she paid £3795 for the car about 7 months ago from a private seller. It's a 2008 and approx 70,000 miles. Exact model is: ford focus ghost tdci cvt it's a 1560cc diesel .

She recently had to pay £1258 to fix it at first. It had a catalytic convertor and dpf, resonator assy, mass air flow center, air filter and 4 new tyres.

A week after getting the car back… the car had more problems, in that it had no drive, engine running but no movement, she started the car and put it into drive but the car would not move. The garage she took it, are now quoting over £3000 to fix it.. something to do with transmission - the turbines damaged, transmission and needs a torque convertor.

What do you think is best for her to scarp the car or get it repaired??

Thanks in advance :)

sounds like the garage are trying to rip her off. get it to another garage and get them to check it over and also get them to check the new parts over to see if they have been replaced.

hi get a second opinion by going to another garage and if the results are similar,cost your losses,sell as seen or scrap it and she can get something else.You never know what's round the corner,had a similar problem with a Renault Scenic I bought for my wife about 10 years ago,first was head gasket,six months later auto box,ended up scraping it.

Yep, second opinion before anything.

If it really is going to cost another £3k to fix it, then I'd cut my losses as you will have spent more on the car than it's worth, and over £8,000 in total. You could always break it and sell it for spares yourself if you have the space and will power. You'll get more money back that way, as while it's in need of a three grand repair bill, it's next to worthless.

myself i would break it .

The combination of a 1.6 TDCI engine and the CVT automatic transmission is known to cause problems. The 1.6 TDCI generates too much torque for the CVT transmission which in the end results in transmission problems.

Most Ford dealers will only replace the complete gearbox to solve the problem. Some transmission specialists do have the knowledge to rebuild the current gearbox with improved parts. Rebuilding the gearbox will probably be a lot cheaper than replacing the complete CVT gearbox.

If it needs what you say its a scrap job best she can hope for is to sell it off in parts sadly she may even be able to take it to a small claims court advice from citizens advice would clarify sadly its what you get sometimes buying privately

does anyone know of a transmission specialist(s) based in london?

Google 'Automatic Man London' & check the website. They have a free advice line you can call.

Good luck.

great thanks :)

There is a company in Erith that do auto transmission repairs - JT Automatics.

Like Wilco said, there is an issue with 1.6 and CVT transmissions that means the engine puts out more torque than the gearbox can handle. I have the same model and have been researching it for when my transmission does die.

Its not a cheap job sadly.

I would definitely get a second opinion from someone before making a decision

Thanks guys. I have relayed all the info to her... so upto her to decide what she wants to do now.

out of interest... how hard would it be or cost effective to convert it to a manual transmission?

anything but....

On average it tends to cost at least 2.5x the cars value to convert it over to a manual. you need to replace the PCM, ECU and the transmission and clutch etc as well as the brake pedal