Hi all,
Last weekend I bough my first Ford, therefore I am now part of the Community :D

 

This is my 5th car (2nd in the UK), and my ownership was as follow:

I took my licence in 2007 and I drove my parents car at the time, an 04 Volvo S40 1.6d;
In 2010 I bought my first car, a 96 VW Polo with 45 awesome horses;
In 2011 a 11 Peugeot 207 1.4 VTI;
In 2015 a 92 Citroen AX GT (only had it for a month, together with the 207);
In the UK, in 2016, a 02 Toyota Corolla 1.4 vvt-i

And now a 07 Ford Focus 2.0

I also had 3 motorcycles back in Portugal so never minded not having a grass cutter for an engine.

Since the Brexit voting I didn’t want to spend a lot as the future is very uncertain, so my limit was £2000. I wanted something the same size as the Corolla, reliable, more recent and with a bigger engine. The most interesting for me were the Focus and the Mazda 3. I was really interested in the Mazda (the engine was the same) because of the extra equipment (like CC and xenon headlights), but I saw a lot of bad feedback due to rust.

I’ve been checking the market for some time and found this car 1 month ago for £1975. I liked the fact it had leather seats and had no problems with the MOT’s, and I wanted a 2.0 Titanium.
2 weeks ago I saw the price was reduced (£100) and called asking if they would accept my car as a p/x. After I have sent some photos, they have said yes, and between £300/400. Asked for £375 to bring the price to a round value (£1500).

The car is from Jan. 2007 and is in great condition, has 99.000 miles and a previous owner. Full service history at a Ford dealership, which was very important to me. Last service was 2500 miles ago, back in October. MOT valid until November. The car has new tyres and brakes.

The car has a lot of equipment but there are 2 things that confuse me. In Portugal any car with this kind of trim would have AC auto and CC. I can understand the lack of AC auto has the UK is not hot in the summer (although the AC auto fits more nicely on the console), but I can’t understand the lack of CC, even more in a country where the motorways are free. I already saw a post about adding CC, I have to check and give it a go. For extras the car has leather and heated seats, driver seat is electrical, but I don’t know if it is standard in Titanium or not. I was also thinking in putting the ST interior lights with the orange submarine night light, but it’s already there, probably a paid extra?

The only problems I have found are 2 chips on the windscreen (insurance will take care of that) and a small chip on the bonnet that I need to take care before it rusts. Also, rear wiper blade needs changing, nothing that £5 and 1 minute wouldn’t solve. The storage on the dashboard won't open.

Only thing I didn’t like is that the handbrake lever is on the passenger side, but I can understand why.

My first question is, I have changed the dashboard to metric units, but the temperature changed from Celsius to Fahrenheit. What? Fahrenheit is not metric...

Only photo for now:

 

Looks very nice from the inside, looking forward to see some exterior shots 

As far as the trim levels, I'm not sure why it doesn't have auto-AC, but the CC is not there as it wasn't an option with the 3-spoke wheel that you have. But like you said, check out the CC-adding thread and you should be able to figure something out relatively cheap. 

The handbrake is on the same side with both EU/UK versions, probably easier to manufacture. The storage space opener on the dashboard gets broken quite easily, but I'm afraid it's not that easy to find the replacement parts, as it's mostly basically an "all-in-one" piece of locking mechanism...but you may be lucky on some breakers yard 

Oh and the temperature setting is somewhere there too, if I remember correctly, it's an independend setting from metric/imperial units. So you have to change that too. 

 

Wishing many happy miles! 

@ScorpionSX I found the option, now I know ho cold is outside [emoji14]

I will try and post some photos this week :)

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

I have called the dealership to understand when were the spark plugs replaced, and got a good surprise.
I knew the last service was 2500 miles ago (Oct-16), what I didn't know was that they have also replaced all filters, spark plugs, battery, all brake pads and some other bits (£1200 bill). Also, in December they have replaced the thermostat, acc belt and anti-freeze.

Some photos from 2 weeks ago :)

 

Sunrise Drive by Joao Maia, on Flickr

 

Hello? by Joao Maia, on Flickr

 

Under the Stars by Joao Maia, on Flickr