I am looking for a second hand fiesta and am contemplating between two specific cars at the moment. One is an 07 1.6TDCI Ghia with 54000 and part service history, advertised at £3,750. The other is same car, same year but has 90,000 miles and has had new cam, turbo, glow plugs, water pump, oil and filter, advertised at £2,890. Both have 6+ months MOT and look in great condition. I am confident I could squeeze the price on both.

Which would you go for?

I do about 14000 miles per year. What other things should I look out for on either car?

If the higher millage one has fsh, replaced parts can be proved/checked and you only plan to keep the car a couple of years I'd be tempted to go try and get the seller on that down to 2,750 which should be easy just before Xmas (1000 cheaper) should be a good runner and the millage is only slightly more than average which seems to be usual practice on a TDCI anyway, good luck keep me posted what you do :)

Hmmm.. if the high miler has had a new cam that sounds to me like oil starvation due to coking of the oil feed lines. Check what work was done during the turbo change.

If the engine was not stripped and flushed the turbo will fail again.

The low miles car may have been driven very slowly by granny to bingo once a week and will also suffer the same fate.

My advice? If you can stretch to it buy a MK 7 diesel, these problems have been rectified.

My advice? If you can stretch to it buy a MK 7 diesel, these problems have been rectified.

Yeah I do second that!

If you need a derv you can actually get a pretty good mondeo derv for that money. Be better to do 14k in a barge than a hatch.

What did you buy in the end?