There are plenty of other engines out there that could be considered just as troublesome. Many come from the big German manufacturers . Recently I have never seen so many cars with engines in pieces that have just about managed 5 years service , mainly catastrophic failure of timing chains on MB and BMW vehicles .

Absolutely, but i guess it seems the 1.0 Ecoboost is picked on simply because there are so many Fords out there with that engine.

But i would also advise against most BMW's or Mercs if asked. Just need to look at the good/bad sections on this website for the relevant cars to see that the reliability for the above two manufacturers isn't very great.

But other small turbo's too, i've read comments from SLO about avoiding the 0.9 Renault 3 cylinder and the 0.8 Fiat 2 cylinder engines. And have also been aware of a few threads cropping up about problems with the 1.2 Puretec from the PSA group.

There are plenty of other engines out there that could be considered just as troublesome. Many come from the big German manufacturers . Recently I have never seen so many cars with engines in pieces that have just about managed 5 years service , mainly catastrophic failure of timing chains on MB and BMW vehicles .

I think it was a previous poster on here, 659FBE, who suggested that the older engineers are all retired and the new systems don't seem to be designed properly. I thought that timing chain design was fundamental engineering, so why all the current problems.

Wait till they start making EVs in a rush and engineering design is rushed...

If you want an interesting read follow the MG-Rover.org forum about the charging problems with the ZS EV and that MG are no longer (ALREADY?) doing some software updates on some Zs models.

They have benn out... wait for it 2 years and 9 months (the ZS).

Edited by _ORB_ on 27/09/2020 at 14:57

I tend to keep my cars 3 or 4 years and, up until last year I rarely did over 6000 miles per year as I had a company van but now need my car as I changed jobs last year, a quick trawl on autotrader shows a few fiestas with 70/80000 miles on but of course there’s no real way of knowing if there’s been engine issues at some point, I now have a ford Puma with the eco boost engine, but would I keep it for any length of time...I’m not sure, as comments about this engine are always at the back of my mind, there’s absolutely no reason an ecoboost engine shouldn’t last if looked after, as with any other engine

given a new Corsa - which are poorly designed ( 208 in disguise ) loan vehicle.

I think these comments are a little unfair. It may not look like a 208 but that doesn't mean it is poorly designed. There are plenty of folk who don't get on with Peugeot's 'i-cockpit' layout, and i'm sure for those the corsa is a better design because it is more conventional. Also, when it comes to poor design, a lot of people, myself included, think having the heating and ventilation controls relegated to the toucscreen is the very defination of poor design. The Corsa keeps physical controls for this, surely a better design?.

I had the brand spanking new Corsa for nearly 3 weeks & i put 265 miles on it.

Im 5'11 - with the seat in the corect position for me I found the heating controls are just out of reach requiring me to stretch forward to adjust them.

The drivers side B pillar is right next to my head blocking vision when you look over shoulder or the passenger side B pillar blocks your vision trying to pull out from certain junctions & turnings.

The front seatbelt height is fixed & will be to high for Joe average to get comfortable.

The clutch foot rest interferes with my size 9 feet when your operating the clutch pedal.

The indicator & wiper stalks are mounted to far away from the steering wheel meaning you have to stretch your fingers to operate them.

The ride is bouncy with poor quality.

The sound deadening isn't up to the job to drown out road noise.

There isnt much cabin storage space.

There are some good points - the LED headlamps where good, the stop / start system was smart plus the gear change indicator had both up & down promts.

Which are generally pretty thorough and unbiased.

At the risk of taking this thread way off topic I would say that may have been true a very long time ago. These days anyone with knowledge of product areas Which tackle will tell you that their recommendations are often poor or even bizarre.

IMHO, Which? have gone right off the boil. I swa this 5-7 years ago with, as you say, some very odd recommendeations for products - cars amongst them. In my view, they are just like most of the mdeia now - just journos with little knowledge (especially technical of insider industry know-how) of the things they write about. In my opinion, they used to very good, but haven't been for a long time now.

Quite a lot, in my view, seems to be now verging on 'activist' or 'student' journalism (much of it clickbaitey), as I have found in many of the previous 'quality' newspapers.

IMHO, car reviews from 'established' media outlets rarely give follow-up reviews when a model is 2 or 3 years old, never mind older than that, or bother to take much notice of the tone and type of reader reviews / complaints. HJ's site has, up until the takeover at least, been one of the few who have.

It's nothing new - I gave up on Which? back in the '80s when I realised their level of inaccuracy with products I knew about.

If you actually read my post you will see that these results were based on models 3 to 8 years old and it’s not a journalists opinion it’s based on owners reporting back.

Edited by Avant on 29/09/2020 at 23:07

Ford eco boost problems have been addressed with various revisions of the engine and components. Have no problem recommending a eco boost from 2018 onwards.

Do they still have the issue with significantly lower real mpg than the 'official' figures? From memory, that was a chief complaint about them (which presumably could not be fixed by a software patch and needed actual physical design changes) other than the reliability woes.

Far worse of a issue (real mpg) than most other car manufacturers using small capacity turbo petrol engines or naturally aspirated ones. The Real MPG figures for the Fiesta's 1.0T are terrible - 46mpg (70-73% of official).

To be honest, nowadays, I would be more reluctant to buy from makes with a history of problems in the early years of the implementation of new tech, more so than before.

Even with 'run-out' cars, you now have to be careful that they aren't scrimping on the engineering quality, as I believe Nissan did when they replcaed the K11 series Micra back in the early 2000s - I've seen late models and the quality was significantly lower than my 1996 model. Admiteldy, more related to using cheapo plastics and fabrics, but it wouldn't surprise me if other standards slipped.

Ford eco boost problems have been addressed with various revisions of the engine and components. Have no problem recommending a eco boost from 2018 onwards.

Where do you get your confidence from as they are most only two years old and therefore have yet to prove themselves as being long term reliable