2002 Ford Focus LX TDdi Estate from UK and Ireland - Comments

Auxiliary belt squeals for a minute or so after a cold start (worn belt - will be sorted at the next service).

Blown brakelight bulb.

The Focus needs no praising from me in light of the rave reviews it has had from every magazine on the planet, but suffice to say they are all right. Even in "boring" TD estate form, it handles superbly, steers with feel and accuracy that some sports cars would kill for, and performs more than adequately.

The old 90PS TDdi lump is getting on a bit now, and it is a bit gruffer than the modern common-rail units, but you really can't argue with what it does. Boost comes in at just 1500 RPM, and the wave of torque (200 Nm of the stuff) shoves the car hard right through to 4750, 250 RPM into the redline incidentally. This is a huge useable rev range for a turbodiesel powerplant, and means the Focus is rarely found wanting for power in real road situations. I've driven a 1.6 petrol version of the same car which is said to develop 100PS, but the diesel variant would leave it for dead.

Onto the more boring aspects - the load bay with the seats down is vast, and the car copes well when laden. On a recent run to the dump one Sunday, it swallowed a lounge and dining room carpet, complete with underlay and six large binliners full of rubbish in one go with room to spare, and the fuel economy refuses to drop below 45 mpg whatever it is used for, and however it is driven. With a light right foot, 50 mpg is easily achievable.

Being a later model mine has the revised grille with the projector style headlamps. Finished in Panther Black metallic and with the optional 15" alloys, it's quite a looker as estate cars go. Inside, it's comfortable, and the funky looking dash has the usual excellent Ford control layout with everything in a logical place. Well made too - nearly 60,000 miles and it doesn't squeak or rattle, and cleans up as new.

So to summarise it's a good looking, practical, reliable and comfortable car with decent performance and superb economy. Where it scores over it's rivals is that it can still entertain when the roads and the mood dictate. Having driven a 306 for two years, this was an essential requirement, and although the Focus isn't quite as agile, it is a lot more driver focused (no pun intended) than any current rival. I recommend the car to anyone.

Update on review above:

The car has now just clicked over 70,000 miles and continues to provide good driver satisfaction. A blot on the copybook has arrived however in the shape of what sounds like a noisy rear hub bearing. A droning sound appears from the rear of the car at around 40-50 mph and then comes back over 70 mph (where it sounds more like a humming noise).

The dealer has fobbed me off twice saying they can't find a fault with it, and it's now got to the point where passengers are noticing it and commenting. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be affecting the drive in any way, but it's clear something is amiss. As I spend a lot of time on the motorway at 70-80 mph, the last thing I need is the bearing to seize or break up. Dealer couldn't really care less, just re-iterating "We've looked at it and can't find anything wrong". Ford are making their best cars ever right now, and cars which truly are capable of embarassing more "prestige" brands, but they are still suffering at the hands of "couldn't care less" dealers. It's irritating to say the least, especially as my car's on a (non-Ford) lease deal with full maintenance cover, so if they wanted to do £1,000 worth of work on it, I'd sign the paperwork without quibbling. Even so, they aren't interested.

Other than that, it's all as before, except I've improved my best fuel return - 53 mpg (600 mile range) on the last tankful! Bearing/dealer experience is taking the shine off the car though. Becoming disappointing.

Comments about the wheel bearing are interesting to note. I've just acquired a 2001 Focus Turbo-diesel Estate with 70K on the clock and it drives very well. However, there is noise intrusion when speeds get above 35mph. My immediate reaction was 'tyre noise' - the car's fitted with Pirelli P6000s - but there's no escaping the din once the car gets going. Maybe it's because it's an estate. I'm going to get a sound-proofing kit to see if that improves things.

I think the Focus is prone to road noise anyway, particularly the estate. However the bearing type noise does sound like exaggerated road roar, but it has a kind of "throbbing", droning quality to it. Mine's most noticeable at 40-50 mph and again at 70+, and is louder after a long motorway run, presumably where it has overheated. It also gets worse on right hand bends and roundabouts, so I assume it's the left hand side (as it takes the extra load on right handers). Doing a bit of hunting around online, wheel bearing failure on the Focus is not particularly rare which makes it even more odd that my dealer is pleading ignorance.

I've found another dealer in my area, so when the car goes in for it's 87,500 mile service next week I'm hoping they will check it out a bit more thoroughly. Will keep you posted.

87,500 mile service carried out and the car continues to be in fine fettle with the exception of this rear end drone. The dealer simply cannot find anything wrong with the rear wheel bearings or suspension. The technician acknowledged the rear end was noisy, but apparently, everything checks out fine. The only thing that did stand out was an out of shape rear tyre on the same side the noise is coming from, which apparently has worn down to 2mm on its inside edge, but has 8mm across the rest of the tyre. I will replace the tyre, but it's quite worrying that this has happened and nobody seems to know why.

I was much more impressed with this dealer's professionalism and attitude right up to the point where they lost my locking wheel-nut key and tried to say it wasn't in the car when I dropped it off. I eventually got a replacement, but it took half an hour on the phone and a trip back before they relented. Thankfully on the revisit, the service area was full of customers and I was clearly not in the mood to be fobbed off, so a new key was provided quickly and discreetly, without having to resort to customer-worrying raised voices. It's still annoying having to argue these matters though. My friend had a similar thing with a Mercedes dealer a couple of years ago, and they fitted a new set of nuts to the car and apologised profusely as soon as they worked out what had happened. I had to argue and explain that doing 1,000 miles a week most weeks, I don't drive the car around without the tools to be able to change a wheel. It worked, but what happened to "the customer is always right"?

The Focus is still a great car to drive, but the fact remains it has an ongoing problem that nobody seems to be able to fix. Unfortunately, this problem impacts severely on the refinement and comfort of the car, and the dealer frustrations I have had unfortunately mean I probably won't buy another Ford car. Or if I do, I won't have it serviced at main dealers. Best car in its class? Undoubtedly still up there. Good ownership experience? No!

Having changed one or two wheel bearings over the years, I wonder how the dealers have checked for wear. I have known of rear wheel bearings being damaged by curbing whilst going around a roundabout, with a little too much vigour - after about 1000 miles the bearings started to make the usual droning noise. Only when I replaced them and really carefully examined the ones taken off the car, could I see minute indentations in the outer race caused by the rollers being subjected to a sudden impact.

I guess that if you instruct the dealer to change the bearings on that side the problem will go away.

The lease company collected the car today. At 91,000 miles I was over the 90k lease limit, so it had to go back. I was sad to see it go which says a lot really, despite the ongoing fault. After spending about 2 hours cleaning and polishing, it came up almost as new, apart from a few stone chips on the bonnet and a moderately worn gear lever knob.

I have now as a temporary measure a 60,000 mile hatchback version of the same car which is identical except it's 6 months newer (52 plate). This car is so much quieter than the other one it is untrue, which confirms that I wasn't imagining the fault.

The example I've just picked up hasn't, according to the books, been serviced for 35,000 miles! Seems to drive OK though, and feels pretty lively, so it would seem these Endura DI's are tough old lumps even when thoroughly neglected.

I will be getting it in for a full service and checkover as soon as I can however. What impressed me though was that going from the 91,000 miler to the 60,000 miler presented such a small difference. A slightly tighter gearbox on the younger car, plus the quieter reat end. That's about it.

The TDDi would not leave the 1.6 for dead, the 1.6 would smoke it.

The 1.6 has more power and is much lighter.

End of story.

Original reviewer here.

I beg to differ. I had 1.6 for three months and while it might be a tad quicker in a drag race if you thrash the nuts off it (it's about 4/10 of a second quicker to 62 according to Ford, so we're hardly talking about "smoking" the TDDI), the diesel is faster in all incremental acceleration measures, and does it without breaking a sweat.

According to the chip tuning companies, most TDDi's make 93-96 bhp before tuning. That is a fact. As the 1.6 makes 98 bhp (100PS) the real world power gap is a few bhp at most. The fact is the diesel has more than half as much torque again on a virtually flat curve from 1800 RPM upwards. It does more work across more of its rev range and only when the 1.6 is above 5,000 RPM does it make its measly few extra horses available. At anything up to 4,500 RPM, the diesel is making significantly more power, and has 200Nm of torque to play with.

The 1.6 engine is sweet, but unless you're prepared to bounce it off its limiter in every gear, the diesel leaves it standing. Entering motorway slip roads, overtaking and all the other measures of performance that don't involve traffic light drag races, the diesel walks it.

End of story.