Time for another car! It had been two full years since the V40 was wrecked when I got a new job at a major pharmaceutical company. The position was full-time and permanent. This was a huge relief as we were running out of options at the time. I had had three temporary part-time high school teacher positions which had me spending more than three hours a day riding trains, which is something I really do not enjoy at all.
With another kid on the way and the new job being located half an hour away, the arguments leaned towards once again becoming a car owner.
I have grown fond of Excel sheets and decided to use them to run a lot of numbers when looking for a car. You see, in Denmark you pay a tax on a new car of 105 to 180 percent depending on the car’s fuel economy (yes, that is 105 to 180 percent tax in addition to the price of the car itself, so we pay two up to almost three times the value of the car itself when we buy one). But your taxes are not done with that. Gasoline is around 10.50 DKK/liter (roughly 5.60 USD/gallon) and 8.60 DKK/liter (4.90 USD/gallon) for diesel. So the choice is easy, right? No!
You see, in Denmark our taxpaying is not done with that. In addition to the above, we pay an ownership tax twice a year, and that tax is based on the type of fuel as well as the mileage, so a 50 MPG gasoline car is taxed a lot lower than a 50 MPG diesel car. This means that you have to drive pretty far for the cheaper diesel to counter the higher ownership tax.
Oh yeah, and there is a 200 USD annual tax for diesel cars without a particle filter. So I ran the numbers and settled on a diesel station wagon that does in the 48-50 MPG range. We set a budget of around 50k DKK (~7,500 USD). Then we went to the bank, and they said that they only wanted to finance newer cars due to the depreciation. So we were very close to pulling the trigger on a 2013 Ford Focus 1.6 TDCI station wagon (Mk3) with some 80,000 miles on it at 135,000 DKK (21,000 USD), but then learned that we could indeed finance a car beyond five years of age. So back to the drawing board with the initial budget.
My focus quickly centered on either the first generation Kia C’eed 1.6 CRDI station wagon or the 109 horsepower (there is also a common 90 horsepower) second generation Ford Focus 1.6 TDCI station wagon. I test drove one of the former but it sold before I could pull the trigger. The same happened for one of the latter. So after a long search, my girlfriend and I were both getting fed up with the whole process, and when she one night stumbled on a Ford Focus 1.8 TDCI just put up for sale, I jumped on it. I went to see it that night in the dark and did a quick test drive. I decided that okay, sure why not?
The 1.8 liter engine is the Lynx design used in the Ford Sierras of the early eighties. It has since been optimized with commonrail injection, but it cannot hide the fact that this engine design is old and the sound and feel agricultural. Meanwhile the 1.6 and 2.0 liter TDCIs are of a much newer design by PSA and thus to be found in Peugeots, Citroëns, Volvos and Mazdas as well. They share zero components with the 1.8.
The advantage of the PSA engines is the smoothness which is a whole hell of a lot better than the 1.8. They also get better mileage. The advantage of the 1.8 is that it is durable. There have been several issues with the PSA engines (an oilpan that does not drain properly, which is in itself an issue. The old oil clogs are then fed to the turbocharger and some of the piping for that is a flawed design which causes these clogs block the lubrication for the turbocharger and then you know what happens). Furthermore, the 1.8 is relatively powerful compared to the PSA engines of this generation:
1.6: 109 hp, 240 NM (192 lb-ft)
1.8: 115hp, 300 NM (221 lb-ft)
Having driven them both, I can tell you that the torque difference is very noticeable. It feels like it would happily pull anything, which I guess is part of the agricultural driving experience.
The downside to our car is that it has not been meticulously maintained and it shows, although the car is relatively healthy. On the other hand we paid 39,900 DKK for it (5,900 USD) which I’m sure many of you would be surprised to learn is a very good price for a ten year old agricultural diesel station car with 135,000 miles on the clock.
The upside is that it is a so-called Trend Collection trim level car. I imagine they did this one because a facelift was right around the corner and wanted to get the last ones off the lot. It is loaded with accessories for a 2007 car: Power windows and mirrors, cruise control, dual-zone climate control, refrigerated glove compartment, heated windshield, heated seats, entry lights in the rear view mirrors, power outlet in the trunk and a six speaker stereo prepared for aux-in which I completed for 10 USD via eBay.
A timing belt change was way overdue so I got that fixed and then it had a rear brake caliper that needed replacement, so I had them both changed. In addition to that I have added ISOfix brackets on both seating positions in the back, had an airbag on/off switch installed for the front passenger seat, a plastic mat in the trunk. These additions are all made to make life with an infant, a 4-year-old and two parents easier.
It drives well and you can tell that the handling is as good as they talked about when it was new, despite the heavier diesel engine. The narrow torque band limits spirited driving, but as a commuter car on a budget it really works quite well and I have got addicted to the torque boost around 2,000 RPM.
A silver station wagon is very popular over here. As of this writing no car holds its value better than a silver Skoda diesel station wagon. This car ticks three of those four boxes, and as you can see, it really blends in well. So there you have it: proof that I have grown as a car owner. I buy just about the most sensible car available and maintain it and do repairs preemptively. How bouh dah?
My unicorn (two more unicorns in the back).
With two kids and saving for a house, you have to make compromises and indeed this is not a dream car. I am very pleased with it and it does everything well, but the fact that the aux-in and the airbag switch were both prepared from the factory, and they just did not bother putting it in, makes you feel like you bought a sub par product. The same goes for the pre-drilled holes for the ISOfix mounts. Imagine Volvo preparing a car for safety equipment and then not bothering installing it. Yeah, I can’t see that either. The trunk is square and easy to access, but why did they not build in more room for smaller stuff? Why did they not install some kind of dividers for those 99 percent of the time when you do not have the trunk filled up to the brim?
I needed a manageable project for fun so I decided to do car audio again, since a better soundproofed car with better audio would improve my commuter experience. I am one of those rare people who really enjoy running cables, so I looked to my youth and bought a used Phoenix Gold M44 amplifier with a used Phoenix Gold 1.0 farad capacitor and will be hooking it up to a set of Boston Acoustics Pro component speakers in the front and two built-for-small-enclosures MB Quart 8” subwoofers. It will all be controlled from my phone running through a preamp/equalizer in the glove compartment.
I want to keep it all fairly hidden, so only the discrete subwoofers and amplifier in the trunk will stand out a little bit. Add dampening, and the sound should be really good with components that from new would have set me back around 3,000 USD.
As you can see, I have only got around to installing the subwoofers and running the cables at this point, but when done, you can say that in a way I have come full circle seeing as my first car 19 years ago was also subjected to the car audio treatment.
Would I buy a Ford as a daily driver again? I just might. I am of course thinking about our next car already, and I am toying with the idea of a minivan, and the best looking and handling one of the bunch is the Ford S-Max. I might go that route and I might go with something completely different. Do I think more about buying an old transaxle Alfa Romeo project car in the future? Definitely.
I used to think the instrument panel of the 05-11 U.S. market Focus was pretty…mediocre, the instrument panel in the car pictured isn’t much better (IMHO).
When I lived in Texas, the registration/licensing fees were based on car size. My, then new, 1st generation Fiesta was in the lowest bracket. Then it was decided that owners of small/economical cars “weren’t paying their fair share”, so lawmakers decided to hit small car owners with the HIGHEST fees.
When I first moved to Florida, in the 70s, fees were higher the bigger/HEAVIER a vehicle was.
The U.S. is big enough that fees are different often depending on your mail/postal code. In Shelby County in Tennessee, depending on where you lived IN THE COUNTY your fees were $10-$27 higher/lower than someone in a different zip code.
I’ve never driven a Focus, but understand they are great driving cars. In the U.S. we didn’t get a diesel, but one of the engines offered was a “relative” of that old CVH engine offered in Escorts.
The worst part about the instrument panel is the quality of the materials. All surfaces are HARD. And I agree, it’s not the most beautiful thing out there. But it does work perfectly on the day-to-day.
Man, taxing small, economical cars the highest is just about the most Texas thing I’ve ever heard.
Yeah, Texas figured that owners of large vehicles were taxed unfairly with having to pay a lot for fuel and they “deserved” a break on license/registration fees.
Yet they felt drivers of small cars were not paying their fair share by paying less in gas taxes and then paying less in license/registration fees.
Texas, home of the largest/heaviest pickup trucks and SUVs.
I’m glad we don’t play those shenanigans here in Ohio, passenger car or light truck it’s the same flat fee of $34.50, only thing extra is a “piggyback tax” of up to $15 that localities can add on.
Diesel vehicles in NZ get thumped for registration double the equivalent petrol car cost and diesel isnt taxed at the pump we pay a mileage based tax seperately the odometer in my Citroen only works at inspection time fuel is between $1.00 and $115 per litre gas is $1.81 for regular 91 so about $4.50- $4.80 per gallon, my 50L tank will last 850kms driven sensibly.
Here in Minnesota the registration tax is based on the original price of the car. They have these complex tables to look it up your car’s “base value” and then use it to find the tax as a function of the car’s age, because the tax goes down slightly each year until 8 or 9 years old, when it drops faster, and at 10 years old or more it’s the same 40 bucks or so for everyone (plus a “wheelage tax” in certain counties). Fortunately they figure this all out for you – I just pay the number on the slip. It’s definitely an incentive to keep older cars, though – for the one car I ever got new, the annual tax was actually larger than my monthly lease payment!
This is the exact same system we have in OK, except they changed it a few years ago, and now the maximum yearly renewal is $100, and it goes down every year based on age/original price.
It made a huge change overnight in the number of SUV’s running around with “Commercal Truck” plates, trying to save $600-700 a year on taxes. Plus, our commercial vehicles have to say “COMMERCIAL VEHICLE” in 1 inch letters on the back of the car, so we used to have lots of $70k+ Lexuses, et al with mailbox letters stuck across the back hatch.
Refrigerated glove compartment. Now that I want to hear about. All I can think of is that when it is cold out here and I need to stick gloves on I’d like them to be warm.
Yeah, there’s a slider to let in/keep out a flow of A/C cold air. For me, it means the equalizer won’t get hot.
Mads, what sort of “dampening” will you add, to improve your stereo experience ?
I drove a Fiat 131 wagon for a couple of years, and liked it: the engine was just audible, and I didn’t appreciate the car’s low road-noise level until trading it for a new Honda Civic wagon, in 1988. Now I couldn’t hear the engine at all for the road noise, at highway speed. A friend said, “Well, it’s a low-end car, so what would you expect ?” Interesting . . .
StP Anticor Light. It’s relatively cheap. I haven’t done the doors yet, so I can’t really tell you how good it is. StP has better lines and I know Dynamat at least used to be the go-to brand for car audio guys.
Oh wow, MB Quarts! College buddy of mine had a Soundstream head unit in his 77 Buick LeSabre plus MB Quart speakers all around, and that was far and away the best sounding soundsystem in any car I’ve ever heard.
Anyone know why the US didn’t get this generation of Focus? I saw the hatches running around all over Ireland last year and didn’t think they were all that great looking, but these wagons are beautiful.
Yeah, I’ve only ever read abot them. I don’t think MB Quart was ever marketed in Denmark. I got these from the US via eBay. I’m excited to hear them in action.
I am confused. I have a 2007 Focus wagon in silver grey, and this doesn’t look much like mine at all! Is this a Euro-spec version?
BTW I love my focus – it does everything I want and there are no annoying touch screens!
In 2004, Europe got the 2nd generation Focus. In 2005, the U.S. got a sort of mild face-butt lift to the Focus along with a revised instrument panel. In 2007 and 1/2, the U.S. got another face-butt lift to the Focus and a whittling down of bodystyles. Europe continued with 4 bodystyles while the U.S. got 2. In 2010-2011 Europe got the 3rd generation of Focus, the U.S. got it one year later.
Ford U.S. decided, for whatever reason, to do the same thing with the Focus that they had done with the Escort….diverge from the European model for a few generations.
BTW, in Europe the Fiesta is available as a 3 door AND a 5 door, and the current Focus is STILL available as a station wagon.
MINDBLOWER? Ford sells the Edge in Europe…with a diesel engine AAANNNDD….A MANUAL TRANSMISSION.
The European version of the Fusion is also available with a diesel, a manual transmission, AND….as a station wagon.
I had a 2006 1.6 petrol hatch, with a slightly lower spec interior than this car. But, what a car to drive!
Never mind the dash plastics, enjoy the handling and ride balance.
IMHO, opinion great cars
You say 105 t0 120 percent tax on a new car in Denmark.
Hmmm.. but you get free health care!
I owned a 2003 Focus wagon for a few years with the Mazda designed Z-TECH engine,
It was a very good all around daily driver.
I can’t tell if you think that’s a bad deal, but it isn’t to me. Now our healthcare system could be a whole hell of a lot better but that’s not due to inherent flaws in securing everybody the right to healthcare (and school/university and unemployment benefits).
Man Petrol Is Very Expensive In Your Neck Of Woods.Down Here we Pay 27 cents Per Liter For Gasoline& 12Cents For Diesel.And No Tax When we Buy A New Car&3Usdollars For Registration Per Year.
Yeah, there’s a good reason why so many of us drive city bugs.
The instrument panel of this Focus is luxurious compared to the one in my base model 2005 Focus, hard plastics & all. I still like it a lot & it’s going to hit the 60k mark sometime this weekend.
i had the twin of this car as a rental in Germany back when it was new on a work trip. Not sure which engine it had except it was definitely a diesel and was a great drive overall. Excellent handling, felt nice and solid. This is the generation of Focus that shares a lot with the Volvo V40/50 and Mazda 3, correct?
I think if we had those taxes here, my COAL series might have been a lot shorter…
I just sold my U.S. spec 07 Ford Focus sedan. It’s quite a bit different than yours. Looks wise as well as power train. It was a gas motor not diesel power windows locks cruise tilt and an automatic. It was a great car for the last three years. I hope yours is as good to you as mine was to me. I really hope it’s good to its new owner too he is 18. It’s his first car
The car is in great shape for its age. Looks well taken care of.
It is in great shape only has 107k miles on it. I bought it from my Great aunt when she couldn’t drive anymore. I was glad she undercoated the car its originally from Massachusetts. Almost 11 years old and no rust anywhere.
I really like it. The first gen Focus wagon we got in the states was quite useful and we see nearly as many of a certain age as any other variant. If I had to worry about taxation the way you do, your vehicle would be high on the list.
I never understood the knock against “hard plastics” in the interior of a vehicle. I’ve seen enough “soft items” go belly up in a short period of time while hard surfaces hold up much longer. Give me the “cheap hard plastics” over the pretentiousness of short life soft surfaces.
But why not have both? Soft, quality materials.
That car would probably have cost 2500 USD or less in the UK and new car tax is 20 percent VAT. Road tax probably about 180USD per annum.
However, every other aspect of life here is crap.
A Ford Mustang Ecoboost fastback starts at 569,220 DKK (92,223 USD) in Denmark, while the same model goes for 373,000 SEK (46,723 USD) in Sweden. The price in Norway is about the same as in Denmark.
Do Swedes and Norwegians try to purchase vehicles in Sweden? It seems it would almost be worth it to rent a tiny apartment in Sweden in order to buy and register a car there.
I don’t know how anal Norway is about it, but in Denmark you would have to be able to document that you actually live in Sweden (grocery receipts and the like). And they do check.
It’s also illegal to rent a car abroad and drive it in Denmark.
That’s a very strange rule. So say you’re touring Germany in a rented car. It’s illegal to drive that car into Denmark? Why force you to take the train rather than simply allowing you to cross the border, perhaps with a small tax penalty?
The best? There’s Volvo DNA In this car, as the platform was engineered to take the T5 engine, and underpinned the Volvo S40/V50
I’d love it if I didn’t have to worry about fuel economy and it had a 5-cylinder whiteblock.
It’s too bad the D5 5-cylinder diesel was only available in the Volvo-badged variants of the platform, as it would make for a great Q-ship
I had no idea this generation shared DNA with the S40/V50. The same, sadly, did not apply to the American versions.
I also really wish they’d carried on making the wagon version on these shores. I’d like a small wagon, but don’t want a 10+ year old vehicle as my daily driver. The only remotely common choice that leaves me is a Jetta. Thanks but no thanks–I’ve heard too many horror stories to buy a used VW.
Hello Mads -another Danish resident here. I know this car well. My dad had one for five years so I drove it alot when visiting my parents. And I have another relationship to the car in that I helped work on the development of the interior hard trim,
And I also knew its predecessor, the Mk1 estate and drove it thousands of miles across Europe. The Mk2 felt heavier and less agile than the Mk1 which was a pity. But as a design, the Mk2 is among the best medium sized saloons of recent decades. I find the exterior remarkable in that it is very calm and cool and yet resembles nothing else. Especially in 3 door form it has a very strong character, as if carved from a solid billet. It has aged really well too – I can´t find any details I could imagine being better. The curious thing is that there is an underlying Fordness that ties it to the Escorts or earlier years and yet I can´t just point to any tics or recurring motifs. That is very clever. This is unmistakeably a Ford and in many ways a design which is even more steely and serious than the Golf it is often compared to. If I had a design museum, it would be included in the collection.
About the Danish car tax: it´s pretty hefty but when I think of what it pays for I am happy with the compromise. Nobody needs a big fat car and if they do they volunteer to pay the tax . They could make do with a Fiesta and get around just fine. My personal experience of having a child with serious medical demands (now resolved) means I understand the benefits of a good healthcare system. Had she been born in the US we´d be bankrupt and she´d be dead. So, I can live with a high tax on cars with no difficulty