2006 Ford Focus - 5 Door - Automatic Let's be upfront: this is not a looker. It's blue, automatic, and has impressively managed to acquire a dent in pretty much every panel. If you're after something immaculate, this isn't it. If you want a cheap, honest, mechanically solid runaround, read on. We bought the car last year at 113,000 miles and it's now on 116,407 miles. My partner is from New Zealand and can't drive manual, so when we moved from London to Shropshire we needed a very cheap automatic for commuting, gym trips and shopping. For longer journeys we normally take my Jaguar, which explains why this has done very few miles with us. Despite being a cheap runaround, I care about safety and reliability, so I've spent around 600 this year putting things right: When we bought it, the car smelled strongly of fuel and would leak slightly when parked on a hill. It needed a lower fuel tank pipe repair (pipe to tank), which has been properly fixed and completely resolved the issue (200). Four brand new tyres fitted by Halfords in July (197). They also carried out a free brake safety check at the same time with no issues reported. I work in a commercial vehicle workshop, so I carried out a full service in November: new spark plugs, oil change, air filter, oil filter, and new wiper blades (110). The driver's seat frame was broken when we bought the car, meaning if you turned left you'd slowly lean into the passenger seat. The lads at my workshop welded and reinforced the frame properly, and it's now completely solid with no movement. When we bought the car there was basically no service history just a Ford booklet stamped up to 37,716 miles so my focus has been on making sure it's mechanically sound now rather than pretending it has a perfect past. MOT & tax: The car is not taxed, and the MOT runs out in about a month. I won't be MOT'ing or taxing it as it would push the cost beyond what makes sense for me. The last MOT advisories were: Tyres (now all replaced) Minor exhaust leak (should be a cheap and straightforward fix) How it drives: The engine runs really sweet, the automatic gearbox behaves exactly as it should, and it actually drives very well. Steering, suspension and brakes feel solid. All lights work, heating works, air con works everything does what it's meant to. Interior: The interior was in a rough state when we bought it and smelled bad, with stained seats and carpets. I deep-cleaned it over the summer, wet-vacced t