V50 T5 thoughts

[I_Am_Machine]

Been looking at an early petrol V50 for the next car. Think it would be big enough for us based on some reading up, think I need to see one in the flesh to see for sure. Anyway, are there any main things to watch out for on these? Is rust a known issue, especially on the older models?
Really fancy a turbo 5 cylinder so mainly looking at the T5, probably in the £3 to 4k range.

[Davie]

I've had a sheddy V50 for the past 7yrs, granted a 2.0D but size wise it was fine when my first was born however it soon became a bit small for a growing child in a big car seat and with a fairly big buggy. I still use it as a second car and my kids are now 3 and 6... they fit, it's find but add a big shop, scooters etc. I had a P3 V70 as the main car, it was far better suited for family stuff. They come in 2.5T flavour.

Issue wise, it's basically a Ford Focus so running gear is pretty solid - they'll give cheap arms, track rod ends and the like a battering. CEM issues were common either due to water ingress or just old wiring connections. They don't really rot... but the front arches seem prone to corrosion. The advice seems to be avoid the Ford sourced autobox liked the plague.

£5k up seems to be the going rated for a nicer example and I suspect running costs might be fairly high... they struggle to crack 30mpg and in standard guise lack the rawness of the older T5 models. I did consider one several times but figured that a remapped diesel will give almost the same real world performance but with nigh on double the mpg.