The rusty £150 focus

[rickvw72]

4 hours ago, sierraman said:

The 1.6 diesel in the Mk3 isn’t a bad unit. 

Your right, it’s a turbo blowing, injector shitting nightmare. Average one is full of enough carbon you could open a pencil factory. 

[twosmoke300]

They aren’t that bad ! Bearing in mind that that seem to be fitted to almost everything . The early ones and badly maintained ones were pretty poor but I look after several with over 200k with little more than routine maintainance. 

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, rickvw72 said:

Your right, it’s a turbo blowing, injector shitting nightmare. Average one is full of enough carbon you could open a pencil factory. 

I think you are confusing it with the 1.6 TDCI in the Mk2, it was a 16 Valver, the Mk3 was completely revised 8 valve unit that is much much less prone to the turbo gauze blocking. 

In fact the Mk3 1.6 TDCI shares very little with the Mk2 1.6 TDCI.

[rickvw72]

These are in everything. Volvo C30, Peugeot’s, Citroen’s, Ford everything.

On top of injectors, turbos, I’ve seen numerous oil cooler issues, carbon blocking oil feed lines, egr faults, and a few that have seized, usually after the turbos shat itself, usually coz the carbons blocked the pipes or pick up pump.

Most have a useless dpf, sometimes with an actual  colostomy bag full of rediculous priced dpf juice! 
Poor. 

It would be very foolish to claim a VAG machine of any type is poorly engineered, citing window regs, peeling soft touch or some trivia, and then buy a 1.6 hdi / tdci.

Not meant as a reply here, but more from a longer term perspective. I had a Mk4 tdi 5 years/ 60k as mentioned before. On almost any car forum, every week, Mk4 Golfs crop up. They’re always massacred by a few posters, citing bollocks such as handling etc and getting all twisted up over “premium”  image issue that I can’t fathom?

A new Mk1 Focus memory compared to a 20 year old Golf reality is not really useful for a comparison, I find and is the internet’s chosen method to judge the Mk4 Golf

For less than a grand you won’t find a better car available easily, they’re normally what I’d recommend people who ask, and several have bought and been really happy with them.

 

 

 

 

[rickvw72]

I’m aware the later Mk3 are a different engine, a mate is currently running one so we’ll see how it goes. He’s only had 3 months so far.
 

I was comparing mk1 and 2 models as they are in the same price bracket as the Mk4 golf.

[sierraman]

I haven’t heard any bad news about the later units. I agree one of those Golfs are decent but the myth never meets what the reality is as far as the quality with VW. The older 90’s ones perhaps, I worked for a company that had some 52-04 plate Passats, decent cars, great on the motorway, then the next generation Passat came out about 05/06 plate, the quality was crap compared to the older models. 

Still if you could pick up a tidy old Golf that’s been owned by someone sensible it’s probably a good bet but a lot have fell into hands of dickheads tinting the windows and ‘rollin coal’. The one thing that bugs me about those Golfs are the limp GTI models, by this point they were trading on old glories, the S plate to 04 GTI was slow as shit. 

[rickvw72]

Not many decent rival GTIs of that era too, worth remembering.

I agree on the quality of later stuff like the B6, I actually bought a Honda Accord over a passat, when I changed from the Mk4.

[AnthonyG]

I think the image problem of Mk4 Golfs is the fact quite a few of the remaining ones are driven very badly by rather dubious people (no offence to anyone on here!).

This happens to most German cars that were sold in the U.K. in big numbers - the 3 series E36 and E46 suffered from the same image ‘issues’ - although the small number of surviving E36’s now seem to be owned by enthusiasts and not dickheads. It’s kind of like what happened to Cortinas and Capris in the 80s and early 90s. It’s hard to believe Capris were ever considered naff given their current values but they were a bit of a joke to some back then. If you remember the Steve Coogan character Paul Calf you’ll know what I mean, he had a Mk4 Cortina. 

I would imagine the comparatively solid build of the Mk4 Golf over the Focus Mk1 means the Golf is the most common car still on the road that was designed and launched in the 1990s.

I still see Mk1 Focus (Focii?) on a daily basis but they have thinned out massively in the last three years. 

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, rickvw72 said:

Not many decent rival GTIs of that era too, worth remembering.

I agree on the quality of later stuff like the B6, I actually bought a Honda Accord over a passat, when I changed from the Mk4.

Very true, the Focus didn’t have enough go if you consider the ST170. The real power was either an RS or an R32. The only tragedy was the GTI was supposed to be the successor to a long line of good fast cars. They did remedy it with later GTIs though. I did like the GTDI, much quicker in the real world than the regular GTI. 

[theshadow]

all drug dealers round here use golfs,😎

[goosey]

16 hours ago, theshadow said:

all drug dealers round here use golfs,😎

Same round here, always accompanied by a faint smell of weed.

[sierraman]

[Jazoli]

On 3/12/2021 at 9:26 PM, sierraman said:

the S plate to 04 GTI was slow as shit. 

On paper yes they are underwhelming and should have never have worn a GTi badge, but in reality they aren't slow and have more than enough power and torque to comfortably keep pace with any traffic in day to day driving.

Mine is comfortably quicker than the Wife's 308CC, my daughters Civic, my other daughters 207, my Dad's Yaris etc etc, most average modern cars only have similar peak power and torque so 'slow as shit' isn't really true, slow compared to a 306GTi or Civic Type R most definitely, slow compared to the average family hatchback maybe not so.

I'm not singing it's praises and the numbers don't really stack up but as a 20 year old car on the roads with modern traffic it holds its own, which shows they got the basics right regardless of the numbers.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

I've always thought 0-40 is much more important than 0-60.  30-60 is more relevant too and for that, headline BHP numbers only tell part of the story.

[Bitzer]

20 hours ago, theshadow said:

all drug dealers round here use golfs,😎

What is the dress code of an average Golf Mk4 driver these days - is it still white tracksuit/hoodie, baseball cap the wrong way around and a tribal tattoo (or ass antlers)?

[Matty]

12 minutes ago, Bitzer said:

What is the dress code of an average Golf Mk4 driver these days - is it still white tracksuit/hoodie, baseball cap the wrong way around and a tribal tattoo (or ass antlers)?

Bit of a pistonheads comment that

[Jazoli]

26 minutes ago, Bitzer said:

What is the dress code of an average Golf Mk4 driver these days - is it still white tracksuit/hoodie, baseball cap the wrong way around and a tribal tattoo (or ass antlers)?

No, they usually just dress like normal people do you knobhead.

[Bitzer]

😁

Guess I would have to provide irrefutable statistic data first.

[Matty]

I've got 2 other cars and a van. Having to wear a differant outfit for each one could get a bit much

[Rusty_Rocket]

Some very sensitive people on here at the moment!

[rickvw72]

I always dressed the same in all my cars.

Apart from the Fourtrak. It’s sensible to wear overalls to protect yourself from the interior in the Japanese Range Rover.

[Jazoli]

27 minutes ago, Rusty_Rocket said:

Some very sensitive people on here at the moment!

I think bored would be more appropriate

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Fat bloke squeezing into jeans that are barely big enough, long-sleeved black t-shirt and a dodgy haircut.  That's what I wear in my MKIV...

[vaughant]

The Ford revelation in quality started with the mk1 Mondeo really and that's from an insiders point of view in a factory that made the drivetrain parts for them (also a Ford factory not 3rd party supplier). 

When that came in all of a sudden there was an inkjet printer to show what shift and when had made the parts, an automatic marposs gauge that checked 1 in 10 parts and fed back sizes to the machines to compensate and keep everything in spec. In fact one line that made the diff case for it got an award for a million parts made with no warranty issues, quite impressive when you think how many parts ford make. 

But yes the continuation info the focus was amazing, don't forget it was launched almost the same time as the golf but as a drivers car was streets ahead, it felt solid, poised, great road feedback and looked like nothing else around at the time when really the mk4 just looked like a face-lift mk3 despite being very different. 

Don't get me wrong, the golf has stood the test of time better and I'm no hater, far from it, I like a vag product from that era, just the focus was a better designed car from day 1 and really threw ford back into a sector they'd been outdone on probably since the mk1 escort. Yes the mk3 and 4 get praise and the rs models were cool but no pas as late as 1991 was a disgrace, the Astra had it in 1985, mk2 golf was way better put together not to mention the Japanese elements. Let's not really even go there with the mk5/6/7 era, except maybe the rs2k models and cossie (which was a sierra in drag). 

But the focus brought that crown back for Ford at the time which is no mean feat. 

I was running a passat and a focus estate at the same time and the focus was better in everyway over the passat apart from the passat was derv and had been nicely mapped, the focus was a 1.8 pez and too thirsty to use for what I wanted at the time. 

[vaughant]

On 3/13/2021 at 5:18 PM, theshadow said:

all drug dealers round here use golfs,😎

Yes but round by us they all seem to be the latest "R" variety with an exhaust pop remap in eye bleaching white. 

Christ they can move though, saw one racing a m3, I think the v8 variety, the other day and it was pulling well away without much fuss. Bm looked a lot nicer though. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by vaughant
Predictive text

[mitsisigma01]

11 hours ago, Rusty_Rocket said:

Some very sensitive people on here at the moment!

*NOTE: The following part of this article covers sensitive topics, including abuse*

[sierraman]

Bullshit has that not been welded. There’s a fucking tidemark on the sill.

To be fair he’s selling it at scrap money, he’d easily see what he’s asking for it weighed in. Buy it, if it’s a load of shit weigh the fucker in, you’ve only lost a morning of your time.

100% the non running on that 1.8D is the pc on the fuel pump.

[mitsisigma01]

 

By the magic of rust convertor.... 

Fkin scroll screenshot is fkin about 😵.... 

Look at the FULL FAIL list for OCTOBER 2019

fkin phone, fkin phone 

 

[sierraman]

I think you know what I’m gonna say... scrap the cunt

[mitsisigma01]

As much as I like old Focii if that thing ain't like a piece of Swiss cheese underneath I would be very surprised. 

Price of scrap is good at the moment 👍