Ford Mondeo or Ford Focus?

[DarcyParty]

My and DP will be looking at 2 cars tomorrow, we have 2.5k budget and an old C3 to trade in. We'll have our second baby in February and don't want any more, so we don't need anything huge. The two that have caught our eye online are:

Ford Mondao
-Diesel
-116k miles
-2.0 l engine

• £2.2k

Ford Focus
-petrol
-94k miles
-1.6 l engine

• £2.5k

DP will be taking it to work in bad weather as he also has a motobike, but I'll be on maternity so taking it on short trips to doctors, soft play, nursery, etc

I'm a bit put off by the higher mileage on the Mondeo, plus I've never owed a diesel before but DP seems a bit fixated on it. Does anyone have any advice or things to consider?

I’d avoid a £2k diesel Mondeo like the plague. Any repairs will likely be costly and negate the fuel savings and some! The petrol Focus is likely to be a much better ownership proposition.

I'd go for the Focus too. It will be cheaper to run and cheaper to insure.

Thanks guys that's my feeling too, DP tells me to go into it with an open mind, but he seems to be obsessed with a bigger diesel engine (that we really don't need!)

We were talking about maybe getting a caravan in the next 5 years or so, and he says we need a car powerful enough to pull it, but we'll probably change cars again before then anyway 🤷‍♀️

We've had both these cars. Had the mondeo when we were a one car household and we did a lot of motorway driving. It was the model you mention and it started costing us money, like masses of money. So we ditched it for a focus and are now on our 6th focus. Yes we do it on finance and change every two years but I love my car. We don't do anywhere near as much motorway driving any more. Hubby also now has a fiesta as we needed to both have a car for work and hobbies.

We are lucky that we are now great friends with our Ford dealer and he always does an amazing deal for us.

I've driven a Focus for the past four years, and I've loved it. And, like other posters, I think diesel is an absolute no-no now.

Id go focus. Also if you're doing short trips the focus makes more sense too.

2.5k for a focus with 100k miles seems a little on the high side to me, unless it’s a newer model. Seems to be lots with that mileage on autotrader for much less than that.

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202008273001823

For instance

There is a push to get diesels out of the market as they pollute more. They generally have high repair costs , particularly if they fail the stricter emissions tests at MOT. Tax and congestion charge costs are rising to encourage old diesels to be scrapped

Also diesels are not good for short journeys - the DPF fails and thats really expensive

The Focus is a 2008 Titanium, whatever that means, I don't know cars very well. It does have all the bells and whistles and extras, but we're definigely going to haggle it down.

On the way to the dealership now, wish us luck! 😬😬😬

Did you get it? :)