Kugas have lost more than half their value

The Sunday Times has reported that some “shocked” Ford Kuga owners are now “being told that their Kugas are worthless”.

Kuga owners the paper spoke to said they were turned away by dealers when trying to trade in their cars and some Ford dealers themselves are allegedly not even willing to buy back their own cars, with one Kuga owner alleging a dealer in the Eastern Cape told him he “would get nothing for it”.

The owner told Sunday Times it was “clear they have no faith in their own fix for the problem”, which is reported to be caused by a fault in the turbo 1.6-litre EcoBoost Kuga’s cooling system.

A Ford sales representative advised on Friday that it might be best to wait until the “media storm” about the cars had passed before trying to sell the vehicle.

AutoBid’s price offer for a 1.6-litre EcoBoost was as low as R70 000, while a top-of-the-range 2014 Titanium model can now be bought at R129 000, which is R167 000 less than it should be sold for.

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The Citizen did a search for Ford Kugas listed on second-hand vehicle sites, such as AutoTrader, and found numerous vehicles being sold at their book value or higher. However, this is no indication that anyone is willing to pay these prices or that these vehicles are still attracting any significant resale interest.

AutoBid told the Sunday Times anonymously they had priced all Kugas at 50% of their book value because “people are terrified of these cars”. Other dealers told the Sunday Times they were either steering clear of the vehicles entirely or offering at least R100 000 less than dealer guides suggest.

Ford is in the middle of a safety recall of 4 556 1.6-litre EcoBoost Kugas, and has tried to reassure the public that once the required fixes have been put in place, the cars will be perfectly safe to drive.

However, it was also revealed this week that it’s not only the 1.6-litre model that has been affected, as there have been reports of others models that have also combusted.