The ford fiesta is a good all rounder but you have to make some sacrifices if your used to comfort and reliability. I've never had a problem with any Ford up until 100,000 + miles as for my fiesta.
Being very cheap to buy and look after it was a fantastic starter car, cheap to buy, cheap to run and cheap to fix if you do it yourself. I was quite lucky with my fiesta in that all that went on was the body until I have an accident in it and had to get rid. I did put wider wheels on it which improved the handling and made it look slightly better in my opinion.
The biggest problem was rust, rust gets everywhere and really cannot be stopped without replacing body parts. I never had to touch the engine apart from servicing and it was still working fine when I sold it. The only problem I couldn't figure out was that water would get
into both the drivers and rear passengers footwell. My sills on both sides went due to rust so to preserve the new ones, once fitted I used expanding foam filler to fill the sills keeping any water out of them.
The looks are about average for a car that age but as an enthusiast you can make them look slightly better. Performance wise, again you can make it better but be fair it is only and was designed to be a fiesta. Being a hatchback there was some space in the boot enough for a pram and some shopping.
So at this point your probably thinking why all the poor/satisfactory ratings ? Well the car is very old and very very basic compared to a 1.1 fiesta of today. The only reason why I have given it 1 good rating is that I could put £10 petrol in and get 100miles of urban use. As I have said I was very lucky with my car but many people I know had many problems with the 1.1 fiesta.
~ Performance ~
Well errrrrr, i'm sure on times I had cyclists going faster while I had foot to floor. On a private road or race track you would get 100mph out of it providing there were no gradients and wind was behind you. The acceleration was pretty poor but you are talking about a 1.1L size engine, even my friends Nissan micra 1.0 could beat it. As mentioned before you could increase it's performance by adding sports exhaust, sportsair filter, adding larger carburettor, etc. To be honest I don't see the point on a 1.1, maybe a 1.6 or above.
~ Cost and Running costs ~
Back when I bought it, the car cost £300 in a private sale, it has a rusted door that needed replacing and minor rust work so managed to haggle to £280 as £300 was my limit and gave me £20 to fill tank up. Back then petrol cost around 60+ pence so I could get 100miles per £10 easily and a full tank would give me well over 400miles, I remember once I got 450 miles on a full tank.
Parts were very cheap to get because it is a very basic car, no electrics, no computers or sensors, everything done by manually. One of my favourite cars for working on due its good old fashioned mechanics.
As mentioned the door needed replacing, phoned local scrappy and wanted £10 for a door with glass, handles and trims. I thought WOW !! £10 for a door. Front break pads were less then £10 when I changed them. Tyres were pretty cheap as most garages would do them for £20 - £30, however to save money there I went to local scrap merchant and chose very good tyres from damaged cars, risky ? not really. If a car has had a front end smash, take the back tyres and the spare (check for tears, bubbles, cracks, uneven wear or any damage what so ever). The scrap merchant would sell them for £6 each, even 14" tyres would sell for £7 - £8.
If you service the car yourself you could expect oil to cost £10, oil filter £3, air filter £4.50 and a fuel filter was 99p. Just jack front end up, undo sump plug and drain oil into a tray, when no longer dripping remove oil filter and replace with new. Put sump plug back in and put oil in, run engine for a few mins so that oil is pumped through new oil filter and top up the max level on dip stick. Replacing the air filter was easy as unclip airbox cover, pull out old put in new, replace cover and clip down. The fuel filter was easy enough to replace as it was an inline plastic filter, just simply remove it and replace making sure the filter is facing right direction.
~ Summary ~
So all in all, a good little run about if that is all you want, cheap on insurance, good on fuel but expect some welding jobs to do on your MOT. I was very happy with fiesta but it was a cheap car.
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lol - i just needed cheap motoring until I got at least 4 years no claims bonus, however, i refused to make garages rich when you can do things yourself cheaper.
Garages are such a rip off.
jonkelly 15.05.2006 16:24
your the man reguarding banger motoring
firbti 13.05.2006 17:03
better so as promised i have rated u higher, trust me it does get easier and mine are still not great now but keep going at it, firbitxxxxx leave me a message any time take care xx
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May 13th, 2006
(May 17th, 2007)
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