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The quote was £450 in labour costs to remove the gearbox - necessary to even find out what was wrong (no parts). If it were out of warranty I'd go to someone with a bit less markup on their people. Seeing as the job must have taken max 7 hours (start at 8 and I was called at 3) that is quite a rate, wonder how much of that the mechanics see??

Here's the outcome .... I stuck with the Ford dealer and it turned out the right decision. The clutch pressure plate was cracked into 2 pieces which was causing the difficulty in changing gears. The entire clutch mechanism was replaced under warranty. The mechanic said he'd seen 4 cases of this in 15 years and suspects faulty manufacture of the part in the casting process. Of course if it had been just a worn clutch I'd have been left with a £720 bill - nice! THanks for your responses.

Focus CMAX 55 reg has done 28K, 60% on motorways. I noticed a "sticky" gearbox some time ago, particularly moving from 3rd to 4th or 5th at high revs e.g. accelerating on slip road onto motorway, or overtaking on single carriageway. TO be honest I (naively) thought it would be a matter of a bit of grease on the gearbox. Took it into Ford who say it may be clutch. My dilemma is that if they find the clutch is worn then I have to pay £720 all in (and £400 just to find the fault due to removal of gearbox). Obviously if it's component failure then it's covered under warranty. We don#t ride clu

The answer was a loose battery connection ! Nothing too serious thank God.

Sorry should be under "How dodgy does it sound" - not sure what happened !

You have to be joking ! A quick check on Parkers suggests a cost of about £9500 for an 04 reg 2.0TDCi Ghia in part exchange. If this guy's Italian, he could have a few month's holiday even in rip-off Britain for the difference from £4000, with a flight back, and if he did move to Italy he'd have to be totally daft not to sell it first and say buy a left hand drive from France (or even England) to get him home. Not sure of the ins and outs of the scam, but scam it has to be.

Anyone had problems with the electrics on their cars ? Mine's a 55 reg C-Max petrol 1.8 Zetec, it's done about 5000 miles. Yesterday when I tried to start her up it said "Engine System Faulty" and it was revving up and down on its own. I turned it off, started again, it was fine and I drove for 20 miles. Then after a few hours I started again, but the electrics had gone completely, no sparking or anything at all for that matter. Just as I was about to give up and phone the RAC it started !! The electrics had definitely gone because the radio needed resetting with the code etc. Anyone had

Now, how sad is this ....I was very disappointed with the 28.5 mpg (half urban half motorway) on the first tank in my new 1.8 petrol so I've done a little research, mainly here ! It's the first time I've owned a car from new so I wasn't sure what to expect with running in etc. The tests are actually done on a surprisingly scientific basis, which means cars can be fairly compared. Unfortunately it also means that translating into real life and what you can actually expect is quite tricky. Here's the official site http://www.vca.gov.uk/faq/fuel.shtm I'm waiting until the 1000 miles or

Now in that case I wouldn't be too disappointed with Ford or indeed my purchase - as I was happy with my Ford Ka despite getting about 45mpg against the reported 57mpg on motorways (my fault for driving so fast!). It's my perception of loss of comparison (and that perhaps I've bought the wrong car for me) that's annoying me. I can't believe then that the EU have come up with a standard that is essentially meaningless - and allows cars to look better in terms of fuel consumption etc than they actually are (which might influence people's choice of car especially with fuel prices on the up).

So how can Ford get away with their stated figures ??????? I mean a bit of leeway either side is fair enough, but to be consistently 25% below their stated numbers (working on 40mpg combined against a general consensus of about 30mpg) is surely a misleading claim ??

There's been a lot of talk about fuel economy problems on the diesel models, but does anyone have any "real world" figures for the petrol versions ? Mine's a 1.8 and allegedly does 30 urban, 50 ex-urban and 40 combined (roughly). I've only used one tank so far, about half urban (light right foot) half motorway (driven around 70-80 mph) and the readout is about 30 combined, and my own calculations say about the same. Does it take a while for the engine to "bed in" to reach its economy ? Do I need a tweak ? Or are Ford's figures mythical for real world application (if so surely this is mislead

Cheers TDCIGhia. Any idea how much those things are ? How do they work - are they removable so you can put the seats back in or are they some sort of bungee idea inside the boot, or something else entirely ? Do you need to take the wheels off the bike to put them in ? You can buy bike covers pretty cheaply which I'd imagine will do the job of preventing crud.

That's weird !! Still the only situation I can really see it mattering is if I'm driving round town with a coffee and need to hillstart ... I guess I'll have to make sure I buy the coffee with those drink-through-the-lid thingies !!

Cheers Smoggy, from a smoggy in exile (London) !! Picked up the car on Sunday and am very pleased with it so far, a bit early to say of course but great to drive. Should be good for a couple of away matches if I can wrench it away from the missus !

Picked up my new CMAX (1.8 petrol Zetec) on Sunday - really pleased with it so far ! Just two questions and one niggle .... On a positive note the questions. (1) Anyone had the interior cycle carrier fitted ? Any good ? How much is it ? How does it prevent all the crap from your bike getting on the upholstery etc. ? (2) Anyone know anywhere I can get some decent fabric protection stuff (I heard a rumour Scotchguard was as unhealthy as Scots chippies) ? The niggle (apart from a couple of gripes with the dealer which I won't go into) ... Why are the cup holders between the driver's seat