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I am thinking of getting a focus TDCI but am put off rather by things I have heard about their reliablity or the reliability of other similar diesels in general. How right am I to be concrerned or are the problems exagerated.
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There are millions of common rail diesel cars running without problems. Like any other car if you abuse them they may bite back.
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Alan,
My Focus Tdci has been a brilliant vehicle in all respects.
Equally, a forum search would reveal plenty of people who have had problems with the dreaded DMF.
I get the impression Mondeos suffer with this problem more than Focuses.
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Few worries about the TDCi and DMF on the Focus. As mentioned there are loads of them working very nicely, including 2 in our family. Due to the large numbers of TDCi engines on the road there are bound to be a few that give trouble but the vast majority work reliably.
As for DMFs breaking, it's usually down to the driver engaging the clutch roughly on too many occasions and/or mechanical disrespect. If treated with mechanical respect they last a long time.
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Or slipping the clutch open-endedly while waiting on a slope at a junction.
No sane and informed driver would do this or look even marginally polite when another person did it.
But, and its important, learner drivers are effectively taught to do it. Instructors say they don't teach people to do it, and the people say they haven't been taught to do it. But they do it, and there's a reason.
Funny thing about the automobile. It's supposed to be as user-friendly as a fridge, but it isn't. And actually there are lots of people who can trash a quality fridge in short order.
What this means in effect is that the mass-marketed automobile is a fraud. But of course we knew that already didn't we.
Edited by Lud on 13/08/2008 at 00:43
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>What this means in effect is that the mass-marketed automobile is a fraud. But of course we knew that already didn't we. <
Yes we did.
What I'd like to know is - how do you trash a fridge in short order?
Luckily, I don't have a quality one... ;-)
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Never quite understood how exactly it is possible to break a fridge.
Every one we've had has been replaced due to old age long before anything went wrong with it.
Of course, anyone who rides the clutch deserves a bill sooner or later.
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understood how exactly it is possible to break a fridge.
jase1 and mh: I get a bit carried away sometimes and indulge in satirical overstatement. But you must surely have come across people who seem able to ruin, by bizarre misuse, the simplest and most robust of devices? Once saw a relation of mine by marriage, a distinguished academic, trying to open a tin of sardines with a potato peeler, damaging both in the process. One sees something of the sort almost every week.
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My wife's granny broke a fridge by puncturing the cooling pipes whilst hacking the ice off with a bread knife.
Aplogies for lack of motoring content.
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Thanks SpamCan... I knew there was a way of doing it.
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Lud, another way is for hefty people to hang onto the door while perusing the contents - usually male, often teenaged - thus destroying any hope of a door sealing.
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Actually we have two dodgy old fridges with knackered sealing in our kitchen, and the slightly smaller of the two, whose magnetic door tended to stay ajar unless kicked closed, is now difficult to close at all and springs half an inch open immediately. Nippers, or the Brazilian cleaning person, are probably to blame.
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Friends of mine bought a six month old Focus estate with the 2 litre diesel. The DMF failed within a month and has been replaced. They also run it on supermarket diesel, and run it on fumes a lot of the time.
What can you say? It will probably end in tears, at least they are in a position to afford it if it does so...
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My 2.0 TDCI focus has run on supermarket diesel for 40,000 trouble free miles, it meets en590 spec as required by Ford and europe. The clutch / DMF is treated with mechanical sympathy as in not abused, why should it end in tears?
Edited by Old Navy on 24/08/2008 at 16:17
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As for DMFs breaking, it's usually down to the driver engaging the clutch roughly on too many occasions and/or mechanical disrespect. If treated with mechanical respect they last a long time.
Possibly although the one on my CMax TDci mine didn't. It lasted 39.000 miles - 3 years and one month, and cost £950 to replace.
Its decades since I last replaced a clutch before this. I like to think that I and I am reasonably sympathetic to things mechanical and living in Norfolk the driving I do doesn't involve a lot of hills. I'd be very wary of another Ford with a DMF.
Having said that the engine was superb and the CMax was great to drive -
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There are those who drive their car carefully and treat the clutch carefully, but combined with living in a hilly area and perhaps a higher number of build quality issues with certain makes of DMF end up with DMF issues. One thing is certain - a large proportion of DMF's will have to be replaced when the clutch goes (if they last that long).
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Lud - yes indeed.
Thank heavens for satirical overstatement - it got me where I am today!
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We still have a fridge freezer in our garage that B-i-L, during our last but one house move, decided to carry out of the house on his own, it was almost new at the time and suffered extensive denting along one side against the front door handle.
Still works fine some 15 years later.
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Some 5 years ago, before settling on my wife's 1.6 petrol Focus, we tried a similarly aged (18 months) 1.8 TDCi. We'd heard all about how good this engine was and, indeed, it went like a train. In the end though, we chose the 1.6 petrol largely on the grounds that it was £2000 cheaper and the car was likely to do about 10k miles pa.
The petrol Focus has turned out to be an excellent car and any remaining yearnings for the TDCi were then wiped out by all the subsequent reports about dodgy injectors, DMFs etc.
BUT, that all started 5 years ago! Surely these problems have been addressed by now ....... haven't they???
My interest has been aroused by the current 'Econetic' Fords but, as they are based on TDCi engines, I remain a little sceptical.
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there is a cheaper dmf conversion that converts the dmf into a normal 3 peice style clutch
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