Daughter just wrote off her new car (Ford Puma) and I felt so sorry for her (after rejoicing that she's still alive) that I did something I would never normally do. As I have zero time to do anything these days I got onto ebay and just pushed the bid button on a Ford Puma replacement without viewing it first. Unfortunately, as I expected it had a few problems with it. The car had nearly no oil in it and when I drove it home it was lurching back and forth when de-acelerating (sort of felt like the engine mount had gone) to the point where I had to dip the clutch and disengage the engine. The next day I took it to Ford and they hooked it up to their machine and told me the VVT timing was spiking now and again which was causing the problem.

Their answer was to strip every VVT component out and replace it at a cost of roughly£1200. Now that the engine has had new oil up to the correct level the problem seems a lot better but it is still there and unacceptable. Anyone had similar problems? I am reluctant to spend £1200 if in real terms there could be a common widget (forever optimistic) that needs replacing instead of full blown surgery.