Too big for its boot(s)? (Ford Fiesta LX in general)

Name: Angela F

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Product:	Ford Fiesta LX in general
Date:	22.02.05 (6471 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A not so mini supermini, Ford economy

Disadvantages: Cheap & plasticy interior, Design faults, faults and more faults, Flimsy and bodyroll

After our Mondeo got hit whilst parked for the second time in the space of 18 months, we decided it was time to trade it in for something smaller. Much as we loved the Mondeo, it was no longer practical, having moved to a house closer to mine and my husband's work it just wasn't getting the use anymore and didn't justify the cost of running it. The struggle to find parking spaces big enough was a nightmare, as was the problem of people parking opposite our driveway and trying to manouvre the Mondeo in backwards around the lamppost and between the two brick walls without hitting the car parked opposite, it just wasn't worth the hassle!

So, after discussing the options with my husband I was sent to browse the garages. We had decided that this time we would go for a used car, maybe six months old as we had paid way over the odds for new cars in the past and lost so much when it came to trade in. We were looking for something smaller and cheaper, but not too small. It had to have enough room in the back to fit 3 passengers without too much of a squeeze, and a big enough boot to fit the average pushchair. Unfortunately, the car we really wanted was no longer in production (Ford Escort) and I wasn't keen on the Focus as the running costs wouldn't have been much different than the Mondeo. So one by one I struck cars of my list, Fiat Punto (too basic), Toyota Yaris (too expensive and too small), Vauxhall Corsa (not quite big enough, not enough power and an irritating blip, blip, blip when you put the indicators on), Peugeot 106 (God awful - we had been given one as a courtesy car when the Mondeo was being repaired and hated it). So, once again, I ended up at the Ford garage. I looked over an old shape Fiesta but just wasn't happy with the size (and had bad memories of being cramped in the one we had had 3 years before). The sales consultant tried to convince me to have a look at the new shape Fiesta (had only been out 2 weeks), I didn't really want to as I hadn't wanted to spend too much, but I followed him into the showroom and had a thorough look round. Uh oh, this was it, this was what I was looking for, but way over my intended budget. I loved the look of it, basically a mini Focus, much bigger than the old Fiesta and a far bigger boot. The salesman tried to convince me that they could do me a great deal in part exchange, so I let him have a quick look over the Mondeo and he did a bit of number crunching. Whoaaa, no way, I didn't want to spend that much. The new Fiesta (1.4 LX with air con) would cost £9,200 and they would only give us £4,600 for the Mondeo - WHAT?! The Mondeo was only 18 months old and had cost us £9,999 new (only £800 more than the Fiesta). I thought it was a terrible deal, so I told them so, and walked away.

A couple of weeks later, after no more success with finding an alternative, we discussed the pros and cons of the Fiesta and weighed out whether the cost would be way more than we were saving in petrol, insurance and road tax. In the end we decided to take the plunge, but only on the condition we could get a better price for the Mondeo. So, I went back to the Ford garage and haggled with them. After all, this would be the 5th new car we had bought from them. They agreed to give us £5,200 part exchange and even threw in mats and mud flaps. SOLD! I took the demo for a spin and that was that. No question.

Unfortunately we didn't get a choice of colour as they said they could only let us have that deal on one they had in stock, Pepper Red, not our first choice, but okay. Turned out it was the demo car, but it only had 32 miles on the clock and 12 of those were ours! So it was all arranged.

10 days later we went to collect the Fiesta. Well, the first thing I noticed was how nippy it was, the 1.4 16v engine was definintely the best choice. The space was fantastic for a smaller car, plenty of leg room, no rubbing elbows with the passenger and plenty of head room. The seating position was quite high, although more so as I had adjusted the seat to its highest position (being so short - 5'3"). I loved the fact that I could see over the bonnet short, which was something I couldn't do in the long nosed Mondeo.

The features on the LX were good too, air conditioning (optional), electric front windows, CD player, electric remote control heated mirrors, quickclear heated windscreen (unique to Ford) and remote central locking. The only thing I wasn't keen on was the look of the interior. The upholstery was beige with a grey pattern on the seats, I hate light coloured interiors. Also, the dash was part black and part beige, almost patchwork, a very bizzare idea I thought, it all looked a bit mismatched. The other thing was the amount of plastic glaring at you from the dash, the centre console and even the doors, all quite ugly after the luxury of the Mondeo, but I thought the economy of the car and the easier life made up for those things, or so I thought.

I found out as time went on that the car also suffered terribly with "body-roll" on cornering, quite scary at speed as you feel as if one of the rear wheels is going to leave the ground altogether! The other thing that began to irritate was the way they had designed the flash/full beam. Instead of pulling the indicator stick towards you to flash, you have to push it away, fine, but you then have to push through the flash to get to full beam, so end up flashing people when you don't mean to. Not very well though out I thought.

A couple of months down the line the problems started. The airbag light kept coming on. I phoned the garage and arranged to take the car in. They tested the electrics and said that the airbag was fine, but there was a dodgy electrical connection, so they fixed it.

A few weeks later we got a recall notice from Ford saying that they wanted to take the car in to check a few things. So we took it back to the garage again.

Then, a few months later, the outer door handle on the rear driver's side door gave out. It pulled out to open fine, but would not spring back into place when you let go. So, back it went to the garage.

Then, a few weeks later again, another recall notice and another trip to the garage.

On a couple of occasions, I decided to take the car to the jet wash, rather than wash it by hand, and noticed that water came in through one of the rear passenger windows, when I tested the winder handles, the window was wound down slightly. I put this down to my sister not closing the window properly when I gave her a lift a couple of days earlier, but then one day when I came back to my parked car after being at work all day and found the window wound down half an inch I realised that my sister couldn't be to blame. So, I monitored it for a week or so and sure enough, as I was driving along I would hear rushing air, and when I checked the window there was always a gap. So, guess what? It went back to the garage.

Two months later, the handle on the rear passenger side door gave out (the same as happened previously on the driver's side), and we had started to notice a slight squealing noise, but we had put this down to the air conditioning as the Mondeo had occasionally made a similar noise.

Okay, by this time I was getting pretty peeved. In just over a year the car had been back to the garage six times. Not good for a brand new car. I know you get the occasional fault with new cars, as we had experienced in the past, but not this many. This time, when I took the car to the garage I mentioned about the number of times it had been in and the inconvenience of it all. They just said that these things happened some times and it should settle down soon.

Well, the final nail in the coffin came when at it's first service (with a different garage) I mentioned the squeal to the mechanic and he said he would do a thorough inspection to see where it was coming from. He was thorough, and it turned out that this was something more major than just the air conditioning whining a little. He said I should get it seen to straight away. So, I duly booked the car back in to the Ford garage we had bought it from for them to investigate and deal with the squeal. Later that day I collected the car, they said that they had located the problem and dealt with it. Great, I thought, that should be that. How wrong was I!?!

A few days later I heard the squeal again, the one they had supposedly remedied. It wasn't a one off. Day after day there it was. Then, to my horror, a week after collecting the car back from it's supposed repair, I got a bill from the garage for £112 - £90 of which was labour charge. This was not on. I telephoned the garage and told them that the squeal was still there. They shrugged it off and said that it must be another one started up from something else. I was fuming. I telephoned the mechanic who had serviced my car and asked his opinion. He said that he had listed around different parts of the car with a stethascope and had located the squeal to be coming from the Cam Belt. I told him that the garage had been useless and had sent a bill for a job they had not done. He asked me to let him know what the bill said, and when I eventually managed to decipher the handwriting I worked out that they had changed the fan belt. My mechanic told me to phone the Ford garage and speak to the manager and complain, so I did.

The Ford garage said that they thought they had dealt with the problem and I was liable for the cost as I was now outside of my 1 year warranty (by a few weeks). No way! I explained that not only had they replaced the wrong part, and were therefore charging for something that shouldn't have been done in the first place, but the problem was still there, and had been there for several months now, and my mechanic could prove it as it was mentioned in the service papers. Eventually the garage backed down and remedied the problem and agreed to wipe out the cost.

I wrote a formal complaint to Ford as I was absolutely fed up with the whole situation with the car. I felt that we had suffered because we had chosen to buy a launch model car, one of the first 100 or so issued, and had to endure the problems that only get discovered through the course of people suffering them and was disgusted that we were now being expected to pay for any future repairs as the 1 year manufaturer's warranty had now expired. I threatened to get rid of the car and go and buy a different make altogether - bad considering we have only ever had Fords (8 in total).

One month on I had still not even received a reply. And to top it all, one of the rear handles gave out again. That was it. Off we trotted, and within two weeks our Fiesta had been replaced with a Vauxhall Astra SXi, and it was the best thing we ever did. I never realised until we had the Astra how flimsy and gutless Fords really are. You open a door and the wind catches it, you push the bonnet just a little too hard when closing and you dent it. The Astra is absolutely solid by comparison, and the power is 10 times better, I only wish we had bypassed the Fiesta and gone straight for the Astra, it even cost us less than the Fiesta - only £9,000 (originally £14,000) and just 5 months old.

The Fiesta was a big disappointment. Hopefully by now the problems that we experienced no longer exist, but if you ever decide to buy a secondhand one, do not buy one on a 52 plate unless you are willing to pay the cost of repairing all the things that go wrong!

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