Hi,

I'm new to the forum and wondering if I've made a huge mistake, on Saturday I put down a deposit on a Ford Focus Mk3 2011 1.6 Zetec Automatic. However I haven't seen many of these cars on the road and there seem to be a fair few for sale at a very good price, I'm just wondering if I've missed something.

Is there something wrong with this car?

Should I pull out of the deal?

I really need this car to last me at least 5 years before I think about upgrading again.

Thanks in advance and sorry my first post is a rubbish moany one.

Shawwoman

The mk3 is a good car, looked after properly will do you well. Every other car around here is a mk3 so they must be good! My mk2.5 is on nearly 128k and is still going like new so I reckon the mk3 should be in theory better than that!

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Thanks goodkat, ours only has 14545 miles on the clock so we thought that was pretty good for a 4 year old car.

I was starting to panic that we were going to be stuck with a car that had endless problems.

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I bought a second hand mk3 zetec last year, and it's been absolutely fantastic. It's done just under 50k miles without issue. Was previously a mobility car. I've seen quite a few mk3's they're quite popular round here.

The only thing I'd be weary about is the DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission) for the automatic variant, I heard that their not so reliable on some of the earlier Mk3's.

If the car is out of warranty, and the transmission fails, its a very expensive fix.

Thanks for your replies, we've got a 3 year extended warranty with ford so hopefully if anything goes wrong they can fix it. Fingers crossed it will all be ok.

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So we dropped the car off on Saturday and picked up the car we are borrowing from the salesman, only to find out it had no diesel in at all! I don't know if this is the norm for courtesy cars, I thought they get lent to you on full and you replace what you used, am I wrong?

Also need to get clarification from TrustFord that they will cover the cost of diagnostics as we only bought the car 3 weeks ago! I don't think that's an unreasonable request.

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It normal for dealers to be useless. Just leave the same amount of fuel in the car as when you picked it up.

As for diagnostics, a £10 ELM327 from ebay and Focccus and Forscan software (free) is all you need, Do it yourself

Thanks madmole, I would have done it myself but we've only had the car 3 weeks and have already dropped it back to where we got it from. Will definitely invest for the future though.

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So we dropped the car off on Saturday and picked up the car we are borrowing from the salesman, only to find out it had no diesel in at all! I don't know if this is the norm for courtesy cars, I thought they get lent to you on full and you replace what you used, am I wrong?

Also need to get clarification from TrustFord that they will cover the cost of diagnostics as we only bought the car 3 weeks ago! I don't think that's an unreasonable request.

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Sometimes courtesy cars are given empty. Simply return it the way you found it - empty.

Ford should cover the cost of everything - didn't you say the car had an extended warranty?

It seems my worries about the DCT turned out valid. Hope your problem gets fixed soon though!

Thanks incontro, yep it's got extended warranty for 3 years, however apparently that doesn't cover diagnostics. I'm still waiting to hear back from trust ford regarding them covering the cost.

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you shouldnt have to pay for diagnostics as long as theres something wrong with your car thats covered under warranty.

Ha yeah that's how it should be but fords booklet you get tells you all the terms and conditions theres a lot that isn't covered and a lot they wont pay for an aftermarket warranty is actually better

When ive took mine in the past to a dealer all diagnostic charges were lifted if the work was done to fix was done there but that could be unique to each dealer.

So we picked the car up last week, no charge to us and so far it seems ok, apparently it just needed a software update.

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So we picked the car up last week, no charge to us and so far it seems ok, apparently it just needed a software update.

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Good to hear.