Ford Problems

The people who sold you the vehicle have a legal responsibility under our consumer laws to find the fault and fix it. It clearly is not in a fit state to use while this fault is present. If that vendor is Ford, Ford should fix it. If it is the motorhome manufacturer, they should fix it. Either way it needs to be fixed, and must be under our laws. The fact that the engine can be restarted once it's been moved suggests that the system is being reset after falsely detecting a fault, and is electronic as you suspect.

Comparing utes and SUVs is tough. I get complaints from Grand Cherokee owners, the HiLux is being replaced soon and the Outlander is nothing special. The Colorado SUV is probably best for you but drive a Hyundai Santa Fe before you commit.

The Commodore is more refined and a better drive than the Chrysler but don't forget the excellent Falcon XR8. It's now effectively a GT and, apart from the high seating position, has very few flaws at a great price.

The folding hard top roof is a great idea, but it's also quite a complex and difficult thing to make work reliably. Classic Ford fans will be aware that the company had a folding hard top in its '57 model in America, and getting that roof to work the way it was designed is very hard. Obviously they have made considerable progress in the last 50 or so years, but it is still a very complex piece of gear to get it to raise and lower smoothly, and seal properly. Anyone thinking of buying a car with such a roof should look carefully at the operation of the roof before they buy.

That's a tough one. The Ford Ranger and Mazda BT-50 are rated to tow 3500kg, but if you tow the full 3500kg, as you want to do, the payload you can also carry is severely reduced. None of the other utes marketed here by the major manufacturers are rated to tow 3500kg, which rules them out. If you want to tow 3500kg and carry a decent load, you're really looking at one of the big brutes from America, like a Ford F-Series, a Dodge Ram, or a Toyota Tundra.

Thanks for the tip. We'll add that to our list of things to look out for on the Ranger. Presumably it's the same with the Mazda BT-50.

I bought a Toyota HiLux last year which I love, and it would be in your budget, but a Falcon would also be good. Avoid anything too old, also high-mileage, or with go-faster modifications.

With that budget you'll be buying second-hand in that class, and that makes the Hyundai i30 the best choice with plenty of warranty still to run. We do not recommend the Golf after the factory warranty. A turbodiesel gets better economy but you need to drive 30,000 kilometres a year for the total cost to beat a petrol car.

There have been changes to the clutch and seals to prevent the fluid contamination issue, but only cars that have gone into the dealer with the problem have had the new parts fitted. The extended warranty is to give you peace of mind that if yours suffers this issue in the future it will be fixed.

The Focus uses a dual-clutch transmission, which is really a manual transmission with an automated shift mechanism. They have two clutches that both come into play when shifting from one gear to another. Ford has had trouble with some vehicles fitted with the DPS6 transmission built from April 12, 2011 to August 23, 2013. Check the build date on yours to see if it falls within those dates. Even if it doesn't I would be monitoring the transmission operation very carefully, and I wouldn't hesitate to take it back to the dealer if you believe it isn't functioning correctly. What you report is typical of a problem Focus transmission.