Buying second hand

[buzzbee]

I am thinking about buying a new (to me) car. I prefer diesel cars (My last two were a Mondeo Deisel and a Honda Accord Diesel). I have been toying with the idea of a Focus Diesel. For what I am looking to spend (About £4-5K), there seem to be some pretty good ones available. However, with the known issue of the DPF, I wonder if buying a second hand Focus might be a bad idea

 

One thing that concerns me is that I have read that however well you look after your DPF (ie. Motorway driving etc…), it will eventually clog up (Natural, I suppose) and that it will usually need replacing after about 80-100K

 

I prefer to keep to main dealers for anything other than small jobs and have read that the replacement could cost anywhere from £1,000-3,500. Is this correct? If so, with many of the second hand Focuses I have looked at being around that mileage, they might not be such good deals after all

 

I don’t want to go down the route of having it gutted, which is technically illegal. I prefer to keep things as they are supposed to be

 

I would always expect to get around 200,000 miles from a diesel engine, so to need to do this at least twice by then would really make it pretty expensive

Add to this that high revving on the motorway on a weekly basis rather takes away from the benefits of the good fuel economy available

 

With so many Focuses for sale with around 80-100K on the clock, I suspect many of them are being sold because they have started to have DPF issues

 

There’s no question that whatever car I get, there will be things I need to be aware of, but if looking to avoid gutting and re-mapping and also sticking to main dealers (Both of which I would prefer), this would seem to be a pretty big and potentially very expensive issue

 

Thoughts?

[tazzman600]

Hi buzz. With your budget I supping you're looking for a mk2.5. I've a mk3 diesel and as far as regen etc go my experience lately kills the myth of regen Only taking place whilst on motorway. Mind e does it on short journeys which I now do 95% of the time.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for.

If you could stretch to a mk3 then do so as they are far better than previous ones.

If you're in doubt about a cars dpf history then you could always do a static regen to clear it and use good quality fuel.

I'm no expert. I just know from my own experiences. Happy hunting.

[Dee_82]

get a later 2009 or later focus and it will have the ceramic DPF, which is better, its still going to clog up but is better than the previous version. if you can find a 1.8 you wont have that problem albeit you will get lower mpg and higher tax.

if it must be a 1.6 and before 2009, then you have little choice, gut it, replace it, try and clean it.

All have their pros and cons

[buzzbee]

Thanks both 

Yeah Tazz, a MK3 would only call into my budget if there was something wrong with it 

 

Dee, I really want to avoid going down the gutting route. I have a history of things just not going to plan. I'm likely to spend £5k on a car, a little more on getting this done and end up with it all going pear shaped and leaving me with no car :-) 

 

Knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it, is gutting it a straightforward process? Naturally, I wouldn't expect a main dealer to do it, but is it usually easy to find somewhere to have it done? 

[Ryan_Tango]

4 minutes ago, buzzbee said:

Thanks both 

Yeah Tazz, a MK3 would only call into my budget if there was something wrong with it 

 

Dee, I really want to avoid going down the gutting route. I have a history of things just not going to plan. I'm likely to spend £5k on a car, a little more on getting this done and end up with it all going pear shaped and leaving me with no car :-) 

 

Knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it, is gutting it a straightforward process? Naturally, I wouldn't expect a main dealer to do it, but is it usually easy to find somewhere to have it done? 

Loads of places will gut a DPF for you, I choose not to gut mine as if it does clog up I'll replace it my self save on the garage fees and worrying about the MOT 

[tazzman600]

Gutting DPF'S are advertised by remappers however I've read a few items where the cars owner has taken the DPF off themselves and power washed the insides. I've actually seen a video on youtube showing it done and shed loads of crud coming out.

[Damien]

Somebody once told me if you cut it out from the top and air blast all the crap out and weld back up and re fit to car that's only way to solve issue. As for mot it will pass as they just have a visual look from underneath and won't see weld as be at top. Not sure if this is true or not so don't hold me on it I wouldn't risk it.

i have focus 1.8 tdci titanium 2007  don't have dpf fitted so I been told on my model so there an option there.

and as above the tax is higher than the 1.6

[Dee_82]

what they cant see they cant fail, as long as the can is there its fine, gutting it is straight forward and is a permanent fix to the problem, they basically chop a hole in the bottom, chisel out the brick, then weld it back up, they will then apply a software fix to disable the DPF function. 

[buzzbee]

I have been doing some reading up on the whole subject. Just as I was considering the gutting option, I found something a little worrying on Hypermiler which echoes many of the above thoughts and also says that it basically cannot be detected. However, it then throws in the below update to it's previous information...

Quote

UPDATE!

We’ve been recently made aware that the government and VOSA are very aware of the legal and environmental issues surrounding DPF removal. At present the MOT test CAN NOT detect that your DPF has been gutted / removed or tampered with but…. changes are afoot.

We have been reliably informed that the MOT test will soon be changing to include a test for diesel particulates and soot. This test measure the effectiveness of your DPF and your vehicle will fail it’s MOT if you’ve been naughty.

It’s still very early days but please be careful when considering the removal of your DPF filter.

 

[south_bound]

1 hour ago, buzzbee said:

I have been doing some reading up on the whole subject. Just as I was considering the gutting option, I found something a little worrying on Hypermiler which echoes many of the above thoughts and also says that it basically cannot be detected. However, it then throws in the below update to it's previous information...

 

 

I think I remember reading somehting about this as wll, but thought it was being introduced only for newer cars eg. Euro 6 compliant.  Until then, I'll keep sleeping easy at night!

[tazzman600]

That's what I thought too south bound and it's come from within ford forums.

[buzzbee]

Well, in the end, it was enough to put me off of the idea and I bought a Honda Accord instead

[Dee_82]

Euro4 + DPF wont be effected by those changes tho and those with Euro V engines who have been a little naughty, time to plead ignorance and trade in to some dealer