Item: Ford Focus 1.8 TDdi 90 LX 5dr
Rating: 4

Limpet's review of Ford Focus 1.8 TDdi 90 LX 5dr

“The Ford Focus 1.8 TDdi 90 LX 5dr does everything you...”

★★★★☆

written by Limpet on 21/04/2004

Good Points
Handles and rides as well as the hatch, which is better than anything else in the class.
Steering and gearbox both delightful.
Surprisingly punchy acceleration
Vast load space with seats folded
Optional heated windscreen is superb
Excellent reliability, and not as far behind VW build quality as the badge snobs would have you believe.

Bad Points
Agricultural sounding and smoky engine
Unacceptable levels of road and engine noise at high speed.
Poor seat comfort after an hour.
Cheap looking interior plastics.

General Comments
The Ford Focus 1.8 TDdi 90 LX 5dr does everything you would expect a Ford estate to do in terms of reliability, running costs (42-49 mpg) and practicality. Also offers a good deal of fun too, retaining all the talent of the Focus hatch chassis-wise.

A very hard car to fault to be honest, although despite decent performance, the 90PS TDdi engine does the car no favours. Not only is it rough, clattery and coarse like the diesels of yesteryear (well, it IS a diesel of yesteryear) but it smokes like an old boiler as well. Far better to go for one of the far more refined (and more frugal) TDCi variants. Or a petrol engine.

Apart from that, poor seats and some cheap looking plastics, it's superb. Reliable, well built, good looking and entertaining to drive. After 65,000 miles of hard use, it shows no signs of falling apart either, and has been 100% reliable to date.

2002

Year Manufactured
1 Year

Length of ownership
Performance
Practicality
Reliability
Value For Money

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Makeitoak's Response to 152455_Limpet's Review

Written on: 17/09/2004

Built in Germany, so unsuprisingly it is well built. Very reliable. I agree with above review. In addition, it handles my pretty big trailer [10ftx5ftx4ft high] very well indeed. Immense torque, even with the trailer, it will go up most hills in 4th gear. [Mine is a manual].
 I got mine new from an import company who imported from Spain.
 Twin front air bags, seat located side air bags and anti lock brakes. The brakes pull up perfectly straight on icy road, brilliant, even though there is an anti lock brake clatter sound, and another funny noise.
 
 So far about 25000 miles. Smokey exhaust and just starting to get new kind of slight engine rattle when engine is cold, so I need to find out what that is. I am aware that the heavy use of the trailer has probably almost doubled the wear on the engine, through the push-pull effect a trailer effects, and therefore I have changed the engine oil at 8000 mile intervals instead of the suggested 12000. At the time of writing, oil has been in 5000 miles, and am using Halfords 5/30 semi synthetic, which they stock especially for Fords. If anyone can shed light on the faint rattle, I would love to receive some suggestions. I am now out of the 2 year pan european guarantee [third years are only offered by uk dealers, not importers].

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Andyrad's Response to 152455_Limpet's Review

Written on: 05/01/2011

sorry this is a late post but i have just had the same clutch problem on my 2001 1.8TDdi focus and did the exact same repair welded the pin back on and fitted new master cylinder

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Makeitoak's Response to 152455_Limpet's Review

Written on: 28/09/2004

I spoke to soon about "good" build quality! Often happens that the moment after I open my mouth I get proved wrong.
 
 How about this for bad manufacture detail:
 I was in the local Ford Dealer's yesterday, with the clutch pedal in my hand. From out of the blue, a gentleman said:
 
 "Bet that's off a Focus, same thing happened to my wife's when it was under warranty, the pin breaks off and that snaps the plastic arm on the master cylinder!"
 
 This happened on my 2002 Focus, [which I imported brand new from Spain RHD, to full British specification, through a British agent, TDDI estate LX] after only 21500 miles. The car is 28 months old and Ford have refused to accept any responsibility, or contribute toward repair, and claim that they are not familiar with this problem, which I find hard to believe, after 'coincidentally' meeting a chap at the dealer's with a similar story. It so annoys me when a manufacturer chooses to generate money out of their own elementary fault, instead of shoulder responsibility.
 
 Rather than pay the dealership's hourly rate of £75+vat for repair, I bought a Haynes Manual, and did the work myself [a bit tricky] having bought a new master cylinder, and got the pin welded to the pedal properly by an engineering firm for just £2. Ford had wanted to sell me a new pedal presumably with inadequately welded pin for about £50!
 
 Please do say if this also happened to you. If enough of us post, and expose what could possibly be their racket, maybe Ford will reimburse us the cost of our master cylinders or better, the full repair cost.
 
 Regards, Alan.

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Makeitoak's Response to 152455_Limpet's Review

Written on: 20/09/2004

Found out what causes excessive smoke. Focus models with 1.8L endura-di or tdci engines 01jan2001-07march2002 build code 1J to 2S and have excessive black smoke from the exhaust or shows loss of power probable cause is egr valve sticks in the open position. They have designed a modified intake manifold/egr valve with protective sleeve which was installed from 07march2002, build code 2S. It is not a quick job unfortunately so unlikely to be cheap.

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