Just thought I'd let you all know about an issue I came across today on my 2002 ST170...

Took it to work this morning, (I'm a mechanic.... supposedly ) to give it a good talking to with a bucket of waxoyl. So I stripped the rear wheel arch liners out and was somewhat surprised and disappointed to find some fairly advanced corrosion. As you probably know, the liner is a funny fabric material which, rather inconveniently holds water and as such spends much of the its life damp. Where the liner is fastened to the inner arch, just above and ahead of the rear "axle", because it's permanently in contact with the metalwork its actually caused some fairly bad corrosion. Luckily for me I was able to get this back to bare metal and protect it properly, however I imagine many other focus' are beyond this. Unfortunately I didn't have time to get any pics so you'll just have to believe me

Why am I telling you all this? I hope some of you focus owners are brave enough to have a look and potentially save yourself loads of hassle in the future when the rot works its way to the rear chassis rails! A word of warning though, only look if you are prepared for the worst!

This might just be a one off but I'm bloody pleased I found it when I did and it didn't go through another winter and get a load worse! Needles to say, a mornings work later all signs of any corrosion were long gone and a couple of cans of waxoyl had been dispensed!!