I thought this was a fantastic car after moving up from a 1.3 to 1.6, the car itself is very bland even for an LX model. It is much better equipped and more comfortable than the mk 4 and slightly safer with the addition of driver airbag and better seats.
The car itself is as I stated an estate, not the best car to look at but easy to keep as it's an Escort. My one in particular was white and an L reg. It came as standard with 4 doors and hatch at back. It had standard 14" steel wheels that had 185 R14 T60 tyres on, not sure if they are standard but if you know your tyres you will know you can put almost any on as long as they are in pairs. The interior is better than the MK4 in regards to quality and looks, not so grey or brown, more of a pattern styling and softer better shaped seats. It didn't have any gadgets on it such as aircon only the standard controls and electric windows, but did have a sunroof. It had no tow bar but fixed roof rails. The ride wasn't nice and comfortable but if you have upgraded from a MK4 or a fiesta it will be much better. The handling was quite good for an estate, the back end seems to stick to road when
speeding around corners but the front end will certainly slide out before the back. The suspension was soft enough not to jig your back bone and hard enough so that you don't feel like your in a boat. The brakes are standard calipers and very easy to change pads yourself, the rear brakes were drums and easy to maintain too. The hardest job I ever had to do on it was change the front wishbones.
~ The performance ~
Not too bad considering it has 90bhp pulling a 1080kg car, the car felt lighter than it was and had power steering. The 16 valves certainly made a difference especially if you only ever owned 8 valve cars. The petrol consumption was quite good until I started getting problems 2 years later. The acceleration is quite slow at about 11 seconds but i'm sure if you try you will beat that by a second or 2. As it is an Escort 1.6 16v EFI engine, you can add upgrades to give you a bit more of a performance boost than standard. I found using Redex in petrol tank and now and again directly into combustion chambers improved performance as well as giving the pipes and engine a good clean out. Very easy to do, just remove spark plugs and pour some in through the spark plug hole, put the park plugs back but not ignition leads, start engine a few times and then connect leads(this will smoke alot for a mile or so or simply run car for a few mins on your drive or outside house).
~ Practicality ~
I found this car very practical due to it being an estate and fold down rear seats. Compared to some cars today the boot space was very good for its time. I used this car as a small work horse by filling it up with household junk and taking to council tip. The suspension handled the extra weight very well and had no problems even when I sold it. If you filled your boot you also had roof bars as standard. Even now with my new car I miss the space it had. With the rear seats up you could fit 2 adults in front, 3 kids in back and pram or 2 in hatch with space for shopping (hell we even fitted a double bed in there once). To give you a better idea, you could fit any standard size washing manchine, tumble drier, dishwasher or fridge in the back.
~ Reliability ~
Mine was fairly reliable until the last 6 months before I sold it, there seemed to be a problem with steering/wishbones at the front which I could not fix myself. I had replaced bearings and wishbones but was going through a set of front tyres per month. Not even my local garage could figure out without keeping car which meant large costs for me. However, the engine even though it had over 100,000 miles on it was running perfect and there were no problems what so ever with any of the engine bay parts either. In its history of being with me it failed MOT's with mainly welding on the chassis and rotten exhaust. This work I done myself and was very cheap, £50 for a cat back exhaust and a few pound for metal for welding. Everything on the car worked for the 2 years I had it, give or take a bulb or 2 so it was quite reliable until I hit the above issue. Even now there are still some old reliable Escorts but the body work suffers the most.
~ Summary ~
So if you are looking for a cheap car and need space, think about this model. Being an Escort you can get parts really cheap and running costs can be kept low by doing things yourself. Costs can be kept down by using your local garage rather than a main dealer as all garages know the common Ford faults. Be prepared for high mileage estates as they are used by builders, decorators or salesmen. Signs to look out for are worn steering wheel, seats and gear knob. Make sure there is no play in the steering wheel or you will be looking at new power steering in the future. Make sure you run engine for a while so that you can hear it through all the rev ranges as they tend to have problems with the idle control valve. Don't forget that the MK5 are run by an ECU and if something seems out of place, get someone who knows about the running of engines. Basically if something don't look right, get further help or advice.
This is a cheap car, cheap to run, cheap on insurance, most garages will know how to fix it, it has plenty of space without a huge engine. Would I get another one ? no why ? the mk5 is old now and that is the only reason why, but I would buy another Escort if I needed a cheap car.
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trigger_mike 02.12.2003 (02.12.2003)
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May 13th, 2006
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