Style Over Substance...... Rubbish! (Ford Fiesta Zetec S)

Member Name: Lools_24

Product:	Ford Fiesta Zetec S
Date:	09/03/09 (307 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks good from the outside

Disadvantages: Lots.... slow, boring and disappointing

When it comes to cars my boyfriend compares my attitude to my car like when I buy a new pair handbag... at first I love it then after a few months I start getting slightly bored and wanting a new car. I'm no way a car expert and no way claim to me but in my 5 years of driving I have owned 5 cars and driven 10 different cars which I can compare each of them against each other.

Prior to owning a Fiesta Zetec S... I had owned the following cars Renault Clio 1.4 16V (my first car but it kept breaking down despite it only being a year old), Vauxhall Corsa 1.8 SRI (loved however see my review), a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 SRI (liked but got bored of it and went off Corsa's), then the Fiesta........

I would say my boredom threshold usually gets to about 4 months and then I start longingly looking at other cars wishing I had one of those instead. With the Fiesta it got to two months and I absolutely hated it. I actually knew in the first month but I kept quiet as I didn't want to offend my boyfriend and admit that I actually should have just test drove the car myself.

Now test driving the car..... I definitely should have done this however I let my boyfriend test drive it instead as the salesman made me nervous. The salesman who came with us was loud brash and just a bit of a pain. I don't like test driving cars at the best of times and having a salesman in the car who keeps asking your thoughts on the car every couple of seconds and leaning over you waving his arms around at you as you drive would have just made me crash. My poor boyfriend actually blames the bloke and says it was a sales ploy to distract him from realising the car actually wasn't that great!!!


**Look** Exterior**
This is one of the things that I really liked about the car. It does look like a really nice car, small but quite sporty.

The car has 16" alloy wheels, rear spoiler, front fog lights and generally quite a sleek look in comparison to the other Fiesta models to make it look more "sporty".

There is also a wide choice on colours both metallic's and non metallic's. I opted for a star silver colour, rather than black like previous cars.


**Look** Interior**

The car is very spacious; very deceptive for a small car.

I actually preferred the inside of my Fiesta in comparison to my Corsa's and the Clio as it was finished off a lot better, and looked less plasticy and basic. The dash board is quite smooth looking and everything has a silver trim including speed dials and gear stick.

The back of the car is also quite roomy and 4 passengers could fit in the car quite comfortably. For a small car the boot is also quite large. Both the boot in my Corsa's and my Clio were a lot smaller. In the other cars I had owned I could never fit my boyfriend's golf clubs in the boot but with the Fiesta they easily fitted in.

There is a lot of choice if you buy from new, choice of interior colour, pattern etc.


***Drive/ Performance***

The technical spec claims:
100BHP
0-60- 9.9 seconds
Max Speed- 114 mph

The car is a 1.6 16V so for a small car you would think it would be quite nippy, especially pulling away, WRONG!!! The car feels so heavy pulling away and it's a lot slower than you would expect for a car that is branded as being "sporty" and made to look like a sporty car with all of the whistles and bells on it. I actually found this was much slower than my 1.4 16V Corsa. Boy racers will be disappointed, and if you are looking for a car that pulls away from the lights fast..... Don't buy the Fiesta Zetec S or your will be left sitting at the lights red faced (my suggestion would be tinted windows will hide your red face)!!

The car also struggles between 50mph and 70mph. I found if I slowed down for some reason on the motorway and then had to speed back up again, my foot was virtually flat to the floor in order to get back up to speed. Where I live there is quite a short slip road to a duel carriage way and at busy times I regularly had to drop gears in order to make sure I could join the main road easily which I never had to do in other cars. Driving at higher speeds on the motorway the car is also a chore...... the engine sounds really loud and like it is struggling especially if you drive over 70mph! (No comment)

This car was also quite reasonable petrol wise. I could fill up the tank for around £40. It is quoted that the car does 41.5 mpg however I would say this is more 35 mpg. I found that I didn't have to fill up as much as my Corsa 1.8 SRI which seemed to drink petrol and it was probably on par with my Corsa 1.4 SRI.


**Reliability**
I only had the car 4 months and it was under a year old when I sold it so as expected nothing went wring with the car. When I bought the car it did have 2,500 miles on the clock. One thing I did notice that the car had a bad creaking noise if I had people in the back when I went over bumps or around the corner. If I had kept the car for longer I would have definitely have got this checked out.

For a newer car the brakes were also not as responsive as other new cars I have had. I had to put my foot down quite hard on the brakes. If I had braked this hard in my Corsa's or my car now (Audi A3) I would have given myself and my passengers whiplash. On the occasion I had to do an emergency stop in the Fiesta, my foot had to be pressed down really hard on the brake pedal.

**Price**
I bought this car second hand at 6 months old and it cost £9,200 which was quite a good deal I thought. In comparison to other small cars it is priced competitively and in the same price band as these. I sold it 4 months later for £8,900 privately, which was competitively priced for a car that was 10 months old

The insurance group for the car is Group 8.

**Overall**

Probably the worst car I have driven and it has put me off buying another Ford. It just seemed so slow and no fun to drive, A nice car from the outside but its definitely a case of style over substance with the Fiesta Zetec S. A positive to come out of this is I have learnt to test drive my car myself before I buy...

Summary: Looks good, rubbish to drive

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