Frying pan into the fire.

[boater sam]

The consensus is that the recommended  annual or 15K miles service interval is too long. Most reckon 5K miles or 6 months if wear of the plastic chain guides is to be minimised. These engines are critical on the oil type too. The chain guides either wear or break up, letting the chain thrash and destroy the tensioner. They are known to be a poor engine unless scrupulously maintained better than the makers recommendations.

[Diabolical Artificer]

Bought hundreds of cars over the years and experienced excellence and rubbish. Peugeot's utter rubbish and special tools needed to remove simple components, Voltswagon, likewise tat,spares exorbitant. Old Volvo's used to be worth a punt, don't see many on the road any more, that crowd has moved over to Chelsea Tractors. Volvo drivers used to have a reputation with bikers, I've had two near misses with Volvo drivers,the last when an idiot opened her door on me resulting in sliding down an icy road barely in control. I digress.

Bought a Toyota flat bed once for a fiver off a farmer who'd used it for harrowing, brilliant motor,drove through 4' deep floods, not one leak, didn't stall,ran for years.

Fords/Vauxhall cheap rubbish,some good some bad. Good for cheap spares.

The brand I'd buy if I had the cash would be Honda - ultra reliable, just keep running. Most of my bikes have been Honda, well built & reliable.

Lastly if your buying a car - buy private, do your research, do an HPI check, never meet halfway inna carpark, check VIN number plates and do checklist. Take a DMM, take battery voltage random readings, looks good and looks like you know what your doing. Always test drive, never give the asking price -haggle. See here - https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/...-used-car/ for some useful info.

Hope you find another car Trevor, good luck.

[Murphyv310]

Hi Andy.
In my younger days I had loads of cars, less so in recent years and wanted to keep the Panda for many years.
Some of the most unreliable cars I've owned were VW & Ford, the saving grace for Ford at the time was cheap parts, good availability and relative ease of repair.
For a very long time I drove rear engined Skoda's and contrary to the comedians, garages and those in the know I had very little trouble with them and drove them like a rally car, two I seriously tuned, most of my motoring mileage was clocked up in them with journeys to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Cannes and round the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It was once the car that I never thought of having an issue with on the road and never had breakdown cover with them, I knew their weaknesses and made sure they were corrected in those areas. Very few to be honest, like correct head bolt torque which was supposed to be set at the 500 mile service and again on their first 3000 miles, dealers didn't bother and subsequently head gaskets failed. Top hoses then also failed due to excess coolant pressure. Clutches failed with some drivers at 50,000 miles but QH supplied a good kit with a diaphragm pressure plate that was much longer lasting, the job took an hour with tea and biscuits in between.
Modern engines are dreadfully weak with ridiculously long service intervals, in fact I'd say the older engine designs with modern synthetic oils would last with longer service intervals much better than the tat car manufacturers make now. This BMW PSA prince engine has an on demand water pump, electronically controlled thermostat with the coolant temperature running at 100 to 105c at light throttle which drops to 88 to 90c when under load with more throttle, madness IMHO a PCV system that carbonises the backs of the inlet valves and many goodies that ruin the engines reputation.

I'll hold onto it if is now cured, with a bi annual oil and filter change and yes the correct spec, oil level will be checked weekly.

[roadster]

Re: Peter's Mondeo problem, around 30 years ago there was a similar problem with some Scania diesel engines.  After a considerable number of hours run the steel oil pick up pipe sometimes fractured. The factory modification was an additional brace to lessen the effect of vibration.
I am still a user of end of life vehicles, they are run until a major problem occurs and then scrapped. I am fortunate to still be able to carry out my own repairs but do now pass some of the less pleasant jobs to a small local garage who is very cheap. I usually give him a drink on top of the bill if I think that his price too low. I bought my present, 17year old, diesel Mondeo nearly three years ago and it may just scrape through another MOT! I am presently thinking of an electric car as my next car as the majority of my journeys are local, but this will cost an order of magnitude greater than I normally spend on a car! Nissan Leafs are available for around £4000 with 80% battery capacity left. I would still keep my diesel Transit which could be used for long journeys if I coudln't allow the time for several recharging stops. I will still have my petrol engined bikes for fun. 
Rod

[Mark Hennessy]

...madness IMHO a PCV system that carbonises the backs of the inlet valves

It's not because of the PCV system as such - we know that cars have had PCV for decades - rather, it's the move to direct injection.

Older engines using port injection benefited from the petrol in the air/fuel mix cleaning the valves.

Some engines have both - the Ford 1.5 Ecoboost was one I read about a couple of years back - but it's hard to know whether the port injection works sufficiently often to help with this problem. Indeed, I don't think I discovered under what driving conditions port injection was used. I didn't end up buying one for various other reasons (but it was very nice to drive, like all petrol Fords that I've experienced).

Now that most engines use GDI, I guess we'll learn a lot more about how best to cope with this - walnut blasting sounds like fun! But I agree that long service intervals does not seem like a good plan for those of us who don't change their cars every 3 years when the PCP lease is up. Much as it goes against the grain, a huge number of people buy cars this way, and that's who the manufacturers cater for - that's just the economic reality, sadly...

Did the cold start give you cause for optimism?

[peter scott]

Re: Peter's Mondeo problem, around 30 years ago there was a similar problem with some Scania diesel engines.  After a considerable number of hours run the steel oil pick up pipe sometimes fractured. The factory modification was an additional brace to lessen the effect of vibration.
Rod

Interesting! My garage never appeared to have met this problem before. I've had this Mondeo TDCi 130 for 10 years now and can say that it is by far the best car I've ever owned in 55 years of motoring.

Peter

[Murphyv310]

Absolutely agree Nick.
Those that buy a new car to last many years are the ones who bear the brunt of modern designs.
My version of the Prince is the 1.4vti and is indirect fuel injection, the 1.6 with turbo or supercharging has the direct injection allegedly.
The other problem is those buying used and the long service intervals to suit the fleet buyers and PCP companies. Yes oils have improved but piston rings still don't seal 100% and will never as bores and rings need lubrication, so blow by will always be accepted so oil gets contaminated. Perhaps we should have moved to LPG or Hydrogen which greatly makes engine internals spotless.

[Murphyv310]

Re: Peter's Mondeo problem, around 30 years ago there was a similar problem with some Scania diesel engines.  After a considerable number of hours run the steel oil pick up pipe sometimes fractured. The factory modification was an additional brace to lessen the effect of vibration.
Rod

Interesting! My garage never appeared to have met this problem before. I've had this Mondeo TDCi 130 for 10 years now and can say that it is by far the best car I've ever owned in 55 years of motoring.

Peter

I just had my 50th anniversary of passing my test on the 6th of August.
How time flies.

[boater sam]

Re: Peter's Mondeo problem, around 30 years ago there was a similar problem with some Scania diesel engines.  After a considerable number of hours run the steel oil pick up pipe sometimes fractured. The factory modification was an additional brace to lessen the effect of vibration.
Rod

Interesting! My garage never appeared to have met this problem before. I've had this Mondeo TDCi 130 for 10 years now and can say that it is by far the best car I've ever owned in 55 years of motoring.

Peter

I just had my 50th anniversary of passing my test on the 6th of August.
How time flies.

   Pawf!  54 years and counting. Well into my 3rd million miles.
Had some good Fords, some horrible BMCs, an odd terrible Vauxhall, A few nice Jags/Daimlers.   Lots of Citroen commercials.   Found Hyundai to be most reliable, cheap, dependable if not exciting.

[Murphyv310]

Hi Sam.
Around the same mileage for me as well. What with TV servicing, dog shows each week when I was younger and driving the length and breadth of the UK, Skoda owners club tech officer I virtually lived in cars up to the time I met my late wife. Then jobs that were an 80 mile round trip, the last 8 years of my working life doing 45,000 to 60,000 a year all adds up.