I'm on the lookout for either a Ford S-Max or Galaxy in Titanium trim, with a 2.0 petrol Ecoboost engine. I recently viewed a 2010 S-Max with 26,000 miles, on sale at a Ford dealer for £14,000. Although I loved the car, there were a couple of things that didn't feel quite right. My main concern was the fact that, although the car drove very smoothly, I could hear a faint whining noise from the transmission at around 20-30 mph; the dealer assured me this was perfectly normal on powershift autos as "they are like a CVT gearbox and the noise comes from the belts which drive the gearbox".

Reading up on this, it looks like the powershift is not driven by belts, nor anything like CVT. I also noticed the car had a removable tow bar and I've always been warned to be wary of buying an automatic which has been used for towing. Please could you let me know if the powershift transmission should be totally silent and whether I did the right thing to walk away from this car?