Ford Puma

Our record puts the Puma's UK sales period at 1997 to 2002 as a coupé, then since 2019 as a crossover. That range is the useful starting point, because everything about the cost of running one turns on where a particular example sits inside it. It came in 2 body styles here, coupé and SUV, with 3 fuel types: petrol, petrol mild hybrid and electric.

The Puma was on sale on both sides of the road tax change of 1 April 2017, and that is the single most useful thing to know before you buy one. An example first registered up to 31 March 2017 is taxed on its CO2 figure under the lettered bands, so engine, gearbox and even wheel size can move two cars of the same year into different bands. One registered from 1 April 2017 pays the flat standard rate instead and its CO2 stops mattering. Two otherwise identical cars a year apart can cost noticeably different amounts to keep taxed, and only the V5C tells you which one you are looking at. The earliest ones predate 1 March 2001, and anything registered before that date is taxed on engine size in two bands rather than on CO2 at all. There is also a quirk worth knowing on the oldest examples: a car registered before 23 March 2006 cannot be charged above band K however high its emissions, so a thirsty old one can be cheaper to tax than a newer car a class below it.

For running costs the fuel matters more than the badge. An electric one takes the same test minus the emissions section. Everything else is identical, so tyres, brakes, suspension, steering and lighting are inspected exactly as they are on a petrol car. A mild hybrid is a petrol car for both the test and the tax: the alternative fuel discount that used to shave a little off the bill ended on 1 April 2025. Four wheel drive versions carry more driveline than the two wheel drive ones. Driveshaft boots, propshaft joints and the extra bushes are all inspected, and they are the items that turn a cheap purchase into an expensive first year.

None of that is a substitute for the record of the actual car. The invoices name what was replaced, when and at what mileage, and the same job appearing twice in three years says more about a Puma than any statistic about the model ever could. A mileage that goes backwards across a paperwork trail is worth walking away from whatever the badge is.

Ford has built and sold cars in Britain since 1911 and spent most of the past fifty years at or near the top of the sales charts. Its used market presence is enormous: the Fiesta alone ran for 47 years here before the last one left Cologne in 2023. The Puma has been the country's best selling new car for three years running, which means the next decade of used forecourts will look much like the past one did with Fiestas. That is context on the marque rather than on this car, and there is more of it, along with every other model line, on the Ford page.