ChasR - that is a lot of miles your cars did! i thought mine had high mileage ( it turned 171000 last week) . Did yours do that mileage without any major or expensive work needed? how long do the duel mass flywheels/ clutches last?
cheers steve.
Honestly? Yes and no. I'll summarise briefly the major jobs. All of the cars below were ran on LPG.
'2001 2.0 Ghia X went from 77k to 380kClutch @ 110k
Diff @ 131k
Clutch @ 220k
Clutch @ 330k
Diff @ 380k (I scrapped the car then ; that was a mistake as you will see, but hey ho
Drop links all round at least twice if not 3 times (it may even have been more!)
Rear dampers @ 250k with springs
Front shocks @ springs @ 340k
Rear caliper @ 350k
3 rear handbrake cables over its life.
Around 2 springs up front over its life.
Note ; compression checked @ 380k ; Amazingly they were all around 200 perfectly.
2003 2.0 Ghia X (sister's car) - 100-210kRear dampers @ 110k with springs
Engine LPG conversion @ 130k
Ignition refresh @ 150k
Engine & Clutch @ 170k - in reality I could have just changed the head with better results.
Rear O/S wheel bearing @ 180k
2004 2.5 Ghia X V6 Auto - 114k-281k - That car was a pain from start to finish!Ignition refresh @ 135k
Various leaks until engine swap! (that was basically the first few months of ownership ; it was a bad buy!)
Engine @ 140k
Front springs @ 140k
Front springs changed with genuine springs and dampers @ 180k
Gearbox @ 210k (stripped the splines within the box)
Steering rack @210k
Lower arm @ 210k
Various coolant fixes (basically all of the system) from 130k to 280k - Besides selling the car I think that if the entire cooling system was changed during the engine swap that car would have been far more reliable. it did help massively for the next V6 and dispell of a few wives' tales about them (the water pump being the main one!)
Front N/S Wheel bearing @ 250k
3 drop link changes until @260k
Rear self levelling springs and dampers changed for normal items @ 270k.
2005 3.0 Ghia X V6 111k-265k LPG conversion @ 120k
Power steering pump @ 150k
Clutch @ 210k
Some cooling parts between 210 to 250k (radiator, top rad hose, heat exchanger hoses, water pump to block hose, radiator and fan controller)
Front springs @ 220k (roughly)
Coilpack @ 230k
Rear O/S wheel bearing @ 240k
Careless lady driving into the rear @ 265k
This car did want 4 new dampers all round when it was written off IMO. But after my experience of aftermarket parts on Fords I was in limbo as to what to go for (I.E : Genuine or something like Bilstein B6s with Eibach springs ; the Billies I have used on other cars with great success).
2007 1.8 LX - 133k-300k (and rising) - This has been a great car albeit a slow one!Front spring @ 135k
LPG conversion @ 150k
Front spring @ 160k
Head @ 210k (valves burned out like the '03 and the 2.5)
Handbrake cable @ 210k
Ignition refresh @ 230k
Rear springs @ 240k
Rear dampers @ 270k
Rear handbrake cable @ 298k
Rear N/S caliper @ 298k
Clutch slave cylinder required to be changed but it is still working for now albeit with a weep.
None of them had a DMF ever.
As for the issues, the early Mk3 MTX75s seem to chew up diffs for no reason ; I have heard of early boxes shredding the diff @ 70k. I have no idea why, maybe it was a shimming/ build/material issue.
The heads on my sister's car and the 1.8 both suffered badly for valve seat recession. The 2.5 V6 did too but that was said to be down to the car seriously overheating and despite the LPG conversion it had many shortcuts taken which IMHO caused a number of problems. Going back to the 4 pots it is said that you have to shim/check the valve gaps @ 110k. Neither of those had that done. I do wonder if this caused the valves to burn out, but then the valves were fine in the 400k '01 without being seen to. If the valve clearances had been checked who knows, the story may have been a little different for both the '03 and 07'.
