Ford Focus head gasket cost
fitted at an independent garage · gasket set, new head bolts, skim, fluids and labour included
- Diagnosis first £50–£90
- Typical time 7–10 h
- Dealer +50%
A Ford Focus head gasket costs £550–£1,000 fitted at an independent garage, with diagnosis at £50–£90 and 7–10 hours of labour driving the bill. On the diesel Focus — the version most British owners have — there is a complication worth knowing before you agree to anything: the exhaust gas recirculation cooler and the oil cooler can push soot and pressure into the cooling system and produce a near-perfect impression of a blown gasket, at a fraction of the price. Telling them apart is a diagnostic job, not a guessing job. Compare against every model here.
Focus head gasket costs by job
| Job | What it involves | Fitted cost (independent) |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnosis first | Block test for combustion gas in the coolant, plus a cooling-system pressure test — and on a diesel, an inspection of the coolers before anything is unbolted | £50 – £90 |
| Head gasket replacement | Full head set, new single-use stretch bolts, machine-shop pressure test and skim, fresh coolant and oil | £550 – £1,000 |
| With a condemned head | When the head will not skim true or the pressure test finds a crack — a reconditioned or replacement head | Add £300 – £800 |
| Main dealer | The identical job at franchise labour rates | About 50% more |
Ranges match our head gasket cost guide row for the Focus. Estimates assume the head skims within tolerance.
The diesel that fakes it: soot in the coolant
The classic Focus presentation is not white smoke — it is a dirty header tank. Owners of the 1.6 and 2.0 TDCi describe coolant that has gone dark and sooty, a system that builds pressure even when the engine is stone cold, and air that keeps working its way back into the expansion tank no matter how carefully it is bled. Every one of those is on the head gasket symptom list. Every one of them is also produced by a cracked exhaust gas recirculation cooler, which sits in the coolant circuit with exhaust gas on the other side of a thin wall. When that wall fails, exhaust soot and pressure go straight into the coolant — through a component that costs a fraction of a head gasket job to replace.
The oil cooler is the second suspect, and it works the other way round. On these engines the oil cooler also shares a boundary with the coolant, so a failure there mixes oil and coolant and produces the emulsion everyone recognises from the underside of an oil cap. A driver who finds that, searches the symptom and reads about head gaskets has not been misled by anything — the symptom genuinely belongs to both faults. It is the same reason our EGR guide treats coolant contamination as a shared symptom rather than a gasket signature.
What this means for your quote. There are documented cases of Focus owners being quoted for a replacement engine, sight unseen, on symptoms that turned out to be a failed cooler. So the question to put before any money changes hands is: “have the EGR cooler and the oil cooler been ruled out, and what did the block test actually show?” A garage that has done both will tell you in one sentence. A garage that answers with the word “sounds” has not started diagnosing yet.
Which Focus engine you have changes the story
The 1.6 and 2.0 TDCi diesels are the volume engines in British Focus ownership — ex-fleet, high-mileage, and the ones where the cooler-versus-gasket question above applies in full. High mileage is not itself a reason to suspect the gasket on these; they are perfectly capable of long lives, and their coolant contamination story usually starts somewhere cheaper.
The 1.0 EcoBoost Focus shares its engine with the Fiesta, and with it the cooling-system weak point that turns a cheap plastic pipe into an expensive repair. There is no point repeating it here: the mechanism, the warning signs and the goodwill angle are all set out on the Fiesta head gasket page, and they read identically on a Focus. The only Focus-specific difference is that the same engine is asked to move a heavier car, so it spends more of its life working hard — which matters for a cooling system with very little margin to give.
The 1.6 EcoBoost is the one to watch on a used forecourt. It is a different engine from the 1.0, but owners report the same signature complaint — a car that quietly drinks coolant, sometimes at surprisingly low mileage, with nothing on the drive to show for it. Because the consumption is gradual, it is easy to normalise: a top-up every few weeks becomes a habit rather than a symptom. The discipline that protects this engine is the same one that protects the 1.0. Check the level cold, on level ground, at a fixed interval, and treat a level that keeps falling as a fault to be tested rather than a chore to be repeated.
The older 1.6 and 1.8 petrols behave the way the main guide describes: gaskets fail when something overheats them, not because of a design weakness, so the cause must be found and fixed alongside the repair or you will buy the same job twice.
What a proper Focus quote looks like
Because the Focus has cheap imposters and an expensive real fault, the shape of the quote tells you more than the number on it. A quote worth taking seriously names what was tested, states whether the head is going to a machine shop, and says what happens to the price if the head fails its pressure test — the +£300–£800 in the table above is not an optional extra, it is the branch the whole job turns on.
A quote that skips straight to a replacement engine is doing something different. On a car with a long service life ahead of it, that is a conversation to have after diagnosis, not instead of it. If the number genuinely does climb into engine territory, the honest maths belongs in our worth-it calculator rather than in a phone call while the car sits on someone else’s ramp.
One thing worth bundling while the front of the engine is apart: on belt-driven versions the cambelt comes off anyway, so a fresh kit costs little more than its parts. It is the one genuine bargain in this repair, and it is worth asking for by name.
Worth knowing before you ring round: at 7–10 hours, the difference between one independent’s hourly rate and another’s is worth more than most parts on the invoice. No repair on this site rewards a second quote as reliably, and a Focus is common enough that most garages have done the job before.
Worked example — Focus 1.6 TDCi, head gasket, head skims true
Head set and new stretch bolts £170 · machine shop pressure test and skim £85 · labour 8 hours at £65 £520 · coolant, oil, filter and thermostat £75 · total ≈ £850 — inside the £550–£1,000 range above. Had a cracked cooler been found first, the same symptoms would have been resolved for a small fraction of that figure, which is exactly why the test comes before the spanner.
FAQ
How much does a Ford Focus head gasket cost in the UK?
£550–£1,000 fitted at an independent garage, including the gasket set, new stretch bolts, a standard head skim and 7–10 hours of labour. Diagnosis costs £50–£90 first. A head that will not skim true adds £300–£800, and a main dealer charges roughly 50% more throughout.
What does soot or dark residue in a Focus coolant tank mean?
It means exhaust gas is reaching the coolant, but not necessarily through the head gasket. On the TDCi diesels a cracked exhaust gas recirculation cooler does exactly the same thing at a small fraction of the cost. Both need ruling out before anyone quotes for lifting the head.
Can an EGR cooler fault imitate a blown head gasket?
Yes, and it is the single most useful thing a Focus owner can know. The cooler carries exhaust gas on one side and coolant on the other, so a crack produces sooty coolant, system pressure and overheating — the same shortlist as a gasket failure, for far less money to put right.
Why is my Focus coolant under pressure when the engine is cold?
Because gas is being pushed into the cooling system and has nowhere to go. That gas can come from the combustion chambers past a failed gasket, or from the exhaust side of a cracked cooler. A block test distinguishes the two chemically and costs a fraction of either repair.
Should I accept a head gasket quote made without a block test?
No. At £550–£1,000, and with two cheaper faults capable of producing identical symptoms on this car, an untested diagnosis is a guess you are being asked to fund. A confident garage will show you the reagent changing colour.
Does the Focus 1.0 EcoBoost have the same coolant problem as the Fiesta?
Yes — it is the same engine and the same cooling-system weak point, with the added strain of a heavier car. The mechanism, the early warning signs and the manufacturer goodwill angle are set out in full on our Fiesta head gasket page.
How long is a Focus off the road for a head gasket repair?
Usually two to four days. The workshop labour is 7–10 hours, but the head has to travel to a machine shop to be pressure-tested and skimmed, and that turnaround sits outside the garage’s control.
Is a high-mileage diesel Focus worth a head gasket repair?
Often yes, if the head skims true and the rest of the car is sound — these diesels have long service lives and the half-the-value rule usually favours repair. It flips when the head is condemned as well, or when a cambelt, clutch and brakes are queuing up behind it.