as above.. mate of mine looking at a 170 tomorrow.. 2003, 80k ish miles...

what common problems should we be looking out for?

cheers

 

Not a fat lot.

Done 13k in my car over the last 10 months and apart from the coil pack I have had no probs and I replaced that at 3.00pm on a Sunday Afternoon.

Performs perfectly.

They all rattle from the exhaust heat sheild is about all I could say - have a mooch online and you'll find plenty of info and apparently they all occasionally have a flickering display light but it stops when you dim it.

From my point of view thumbs up great car just nothing more than nippy at best - however handles and stops very well.

FYI I have a 04 3dr in Blue which has now done 73k miles.

Jake

 

Check for rusty sump as it will go porus and weep oil. Ive just done mine and while the exhaust was off I removed the heat shields. No more rattling thank god.

When you test one drive it hard as the inlet manifold doesnt change over untill 5K revs and they rev to over 7K. There should be a noticable exhaust note change at 5K. If not there could be issues with the inlet manifold runner control module.

I really like mine as its a perfect family car.

 

cheers,

ye iv seen a few on here with the rattle.. il defo check that

 

only a little thing, but have a look behind the clutch pedal. If the clutch master cylinder is on its way out it'll leak slowly onto the clutch pedal.

 

Look out for Flywheel problems as well, early ones are prone to that going.

 

Dual mass flywheels failiures, a costly and common fix.

Inlet manifold runner control actuator can break, which also breaks the control box at the same time.

Its rare but not unheard of for the flaps inside the inlet manifold to break.

They seem to munch lambda sensors.

Rust under door mirrors, along bottom of doors/boot, around boot handle.

Personally if I was having another, I'd have one without climate control, its a god awful system on the mk1 focus.

Cam changeover solenoid thing leaks oil into spark plug wells.

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head!

 

In what way.... I think its fine.???????/

 

Just found when it was parked in a garage and drove it out in the morning, it would blast out hot air because the interior of the car was cool, even though it was 20 degrees outside. Would only give out heat to the floor unless you manually selected face. Just seemed to be no happy medium with it, was either chucking out red hot air or freezing cold air, was constantly adjusting it up and down to stay happy.

On the mondeo I had before the st170 and on the st i've got now, the climate control works a lot better imo, so definately wouldn't have it again if i was to have another!

 

See link in my sig for my ST170 website, but pretty sure you've found that link on Google already.

 

I have had mine since january. Brilliant car, so comfy. Power delivery is something to be desired. But wind it up and it flies. Has had the common lambda, heatshield, light dimmer faults.

I am selling up to get a st3 though.

 

There's a common prob on all focii which is the heater blower resistor pack,which means that you only get blowers on position four.it's not too hard to change so no major panic.there also pretty heavy on fuel and as previously stated a slow pick up.no real major issues but obvious checks for accident damage etc. as they're a performance car and would have been used as such,chassis legs go easily in a crash which is what they should do but make sure any paints been done nice as it may hide deeper probs,oh and make sure you hpi it as my mate got stung for finance the other day and is shitting it right now.

 

Agree with all comments above, the chap with the website has some useful info on the car check it out.

Get as much history on the car as possible, would also look at replacing the cambelt if it hasnt been done. With all Mk1's check the pollen filter is in good nick and isnt damp,the location under the windscreen scuttle a major design fault with the Mk1.
Dont assume the rattle from the area of the Cat is just the heatshield, try giving the Cat a light tap too, this caught me out when purchasing mine, I removed the heatshield thinking the problem was sorted only to find it was my actual Cat that was breaking up.
As stated the car needs to be worked hard to get 90's hot hatch performance out of it, also check the control blades on the rear suspension set up are straight, some people reverse into kerbs or similar and these are prone to damage. Check all electrical switches work and the central locking is in good order, check all doors lock ok.
If test driving the car try turning on full lock and listen for any scraping/rubbing sounds from the front end.

 

Tell me more about this - the chaps at my local tyre place struggled to track the car up and reckoned it needed 4 wheel aligning as the back might be out?

J

 

cheers for info... chaps comming this afternoon now so plenty to go on

 

Yeah check for a leaky sump. I've just had mine replaced. It's an 2004 53 plate with around 40k on the clock. Also had one of the springs snap, but that's been it. Good car to drive - brilliant handling, etc - as mentioned above, but not quick. Fast enough for your needs on the road though.

Had this for a year and a half now, and had a 1.8 Focus to get from A to B years ago and they've both been fantastic. Spring for this one (the ST170) was cheap, and so was the sump.

 

I had mine from new and drove it hard for 56k and only major problems i had was the usual exhaust rattle and one of the cv joints needed replace and the lambda sensor needed replaced cause i did a jump and broke the manifold and the sensor exhaust hangs down too low for jumps

Apart from that it was very reliable car and had it superchipped from new, def prefered it revving a bit more with that.

 

The only problem i have had with mine and its twice now is the cat, bought it through Fords and they only lasted two years and at £600 a pop its expensive.. Apart from that no probs at 52k miles