Ford Focus II (2004 - 2007) - 07 1.8 diesel - first service!! | Technical matters | Back Room Forum

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Thu 8 Jan 2009 12:43

07 1.8 diesel - first service!! - Owen J

I've viewed a 56 plate 1800 diesel focus which seems like a pretty good deal (£5,300 private sale). It's got 38k on it but it didn't have its first service until it had covered nearly 21k miles (at 9 months from first registration) !!

The manual states that it should be serviced at 12.5k miles! Should I walk away or has oil and engine technology moved on so much of late that this is acceptable?

Does the first oil change on a new engine not have to be done at 500/1000 miles anymore?

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 08/01/2009 at 18:46

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Thu 8 Jan 2009 12:47

07 1.8 1.8 diesel - first service!! - Falkirk Bairn

Find a car with the proper service history - lots about from £7K (petrol) approx 15K or less miles - diesels a bit dearer

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Thu 8 Jan 2009 15:29

07 1.8 1.8 diesel - first service!! - Paul G1pdc

i walked away from a mondeo once with the opposite issues, had been serviced on the milage not the time. ie had gone 2.5 years without a service, but then serviced at 10k.
you only had to look on the net to find that the engines suffer badly from missing these service intervals.
just bought a £4k impreza from a dealer with 29k on the clock (non turbo estate) and was looking through the service book again last night, my petrol car was first serviced at 500 miles (this was the 1000 service) and will have its 72k service this year even though its currently got 31k on the clock....ie service on the years not the milage...
its now working for it living along single track muddy back roads..

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Thu 8 Jan 2009 16:03

07 1.8 1.8 diesel - first service!! - Owen J

Thanks for replies (and keep em coming!)

Even though it's a nice car at a good price I think I might have to pass. The first oil change is presumably the most important and it's gone nearly twice as long as it should have on the original oil!!

As someone on another forum pointed out this has presumably voided the warranty now as well (nearly 12 months left!)

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Thu 8 Jan 2009 19:48

07 1.8 1.8 diesel - first service!! - TurboD

I bought a Mondy at 14K miles, had just been serviced so missed by 1500miles. This is petrol. typical hire car of course. That was three years ago and has been fine so far.
Odd for a private owner to do this to their 'investment', you will have no warranty at all on this, at least I had the dealer's , if necessary.
I would not buy as I am cautious- pay a bit more for a dealer's (I presume that's the word you meant?) car with some come back for the rest of the three year warranty- especially with diesel which are far more prone to breakdowns and expensive repairs

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 08/01/2009 at 21:09

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Fri 9 Jan 2009 16:49

07 1.8 1.8 diesel - first service!! - quizman

You could get a stamp and make up the first service.
I sold my wife's Focus TDCI, when the DMF went kaput, to a car dealer. Because I had serviced the car myself, it did not have the correct stamps in the book. The dealer said it wasn't worth as much without service history and knocked the price down.
Imagine my surprise when I saw it for sale with "full service history" later on.

Have you asked the owner of the car you are looking at whether it has ever had an oil change?

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Fri 9 Jan 2009 19:03

07 1.8 1.8 diesel - first service!! - astrabob

I once test drove a diesel Focus which had covered 61k miles.

After seeing that it had been serviced just once in this time, I walked away. The saleman did say, "well that doesn't matter, we'll service it before you collect it".

Missed servicing just shows that the owner was running it on the cheap.

Missed oil changes kills diesel and turbocharged engines. Petrol engines are slightly more tolerant.

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