Ford Orion Ghia 1.8i 16v (Ford Orion)

Member Name: 137699

Product:	Ford Orion
Date:	22/11/02 (1656 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good spec, Nice looking car, Great Performance

Disadvantages: Poor build quality, Huge reliability problems, Inadequate Ford service

My tale is of a mk3 Orion - the ones that came out in 1990 and died around 1994 when they were rebranded an "Escort Saloon".

I bought it from a main ford dealer in 1993, and it was a fully loaded car. It had done 10,000 miles from new (one owner) and was less than a year old. It's spec was alloy wheels, elec windows, tilt/slide sunroof, elec mirrors, CD & casette player, central locking, heated front & rear screens.

I spent quite a bit of money in upgrading this car - I had a nice Ford painted spoiler fitted to the rear, changed the wheels for those which normally adorn the Ghia Si model, fitted front fog lamps with the genuine Ford kit, had a quality immobilisor installed, and added the sporty steering wheel option. The result was that this was a car which not only went very quickly (as quick as an xr3i for example) but did it in style, and looked the part in an understated way, without being a boy-racer essex-type car.

Unfortunately, I was to regret spending so much money on this car. After about 18 months of trouble free motoring, I started to have problems getting the car to start in the morning, and this soon led to a major power-loss problem whereby the car would struggle to 60mph on the motorway and would refuse to go any faster.

It went to my local main-ford dealer time and time again to try and resolve the problem - first it was the fuse box - they changed this (for the best part of £200) and declared the problem solved - within days the problem resurfaced. They then spent 4+ days changing this and that, at a cost of £250, then sent it back again, declaring it solved - it wasn't. Finally they traced the fault to the hego sensor, and another £175 later, the car did indeed seem to be sorted.

So on it motored for another year, although I couldn't help thinking that still something was wrong. Some mornings it would not start. Others it took 20 mins of trying, before it would splutter into life.
The main problem also seemed worse if you stopped the car for a few mins (perhaps while you open the garage door) then try restarting it - suddenly the problems were there again - it would not start, or if it did, it fired badly for a while.

Eventually, the car simply cut out on me one day while driving along. The RAC could do nothing with it, so this time I had the car towed to another dealer. They had it for 3 days, before telling me that the engine management system was faulty, and probably had been since the car originally caused me all the bother 18months previously. The cost of a new module - £1000. I chose not to have this done, but as they'd managed to get it going again (albeit unreliably) I took the car to another Ford dealer and instead part exchanged the car pronto.

Of course, I could have been very unlucky with all this bother on my car, but the other problems I had I think are a little more commonplace.

It wore through tyres like they were going out of fashion. The front tyres always wore on the inner edges, and would last 10,000 miles if I was lucky. Also, the brake pads lasted not much longer! Really, I did not drive this car that harshly!

The rear wheel bearings didn't last long, and the clutch gave up at 45,000 miles - which really isn't very much!

By the time I sold it, it was 3 years old, and begining to show rust on the wheel arches.

I was glad to be rid of it, and I'd never have bought another Ford ever again, if it wasn't for the fact that I needed to P/X the vehicle, so Ford dealers were my main option, and gave me best value (they didn't realise the car was such a dog!). There was no way I was going to sell the car privately to any unsuspecting person!

Fortunately for me and Ford, my next car (mondeo - see other review) was a blinder, and a world apart from the nightmare of the Orion!

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