I agree - keep it until a really big bill then discard. Although compared with our 16yr old 118,000m Focus 1.6 Zetec with only petrol pump, brakes and plugs renewed, I think you have been unlucky re reliability. Or do you floor the accelerator in first gear turning out of junctions often? Do you use the handbrake every time you stop? I rarely use it - a car in 1st gear or 'P' might suffer less if bumped in a parking space.

A couple of ideas:

Auris 1.6 estate, cheapest down to about 9K now in dealers. Proper handbrake and proper non turbo everlasting petrol engine.

Civic 1.8 petrol hatch, anything from2006 to present depending on your budget. I believe the 2012 on latest model has better ride quality. Again, one of the best petrol engines around, huge boot and a very competent car

Mazda 3 petrol, again, ultra reliable, competent car.

Thanks for the new replies.

Usage: probably no more than 200 miles a week at most. Mostly A road and M way driving, not much stop/start commuting. Size wise, the Fiesta is as small as I would go. I've always wanted a really big car and never had one, but for lots of reasons such a thing would be totally impractical now. I'd certainly consider an auto, even though we once had a Meriva with that awful Easytronic semi automatic gearbox, which although it wasn't of course a true auto was enough to put anyone off aut***ift for life.

Its not so much that a 2011 Focus is beyond our budget, but more that in my search for one I'm confronted with what I think are unreasonable prices for a five year old car, most of them being with main dealers. Same applies to the newest Fiesta but even more so.

My original plan was to hang onto the Focus for another four years until I get an income boost in the form of another pension, and then chuck a portion of that at a new or newish car, rather than bung a chunk of our ever shrinking capital at an older car. However, the hard ride of this Focus is forcing my hand a little so I thought it was worth coming on here and asking the questions.

Noted also what's said about the potential for the Fiesta ride being as bad as the Focus. My son has a 2009 Fiesta Titanium 1.4 and the ride isn't great, admittedly. However, it does have those awful low profile tyres and I don't think they were fitted on later models, so we really need to get in a later Fiesta, one without skinny tyres, to do a proper comparison. It had occured to me that the problem of concrete suspension might also afflict the Focus's smaller cousin, but you don't know till you try.

Budget would be no more than £7500, so some of the cars mentioned above are probably beyond our price range. I had hoped to get near to 2k for our current car in a private sale, but looking at the online sites I reckon that to shift it quickly I'd have to pitch it much lower. I'm even tempted--horror upon horrors--to consider part-exing it, something I said I would never do with a car ever again.

However and in any case, I'll keep looking for something with a reasonable boot, decent poke under the bonnet, lowish tax and lowish insurance ratings, softer ride than we currently endure and not pig ugly. Its gotta be out there somewhere, and even if it ain't, one day we might be able to afford something I always promised myself I would never buy: a new car.

Edited by argybargy on 07/11/2016 at 10:01