2007 Ford Fiesta ST review from UK and Ireland

When I picked the car up from the dealer, the exhaust manifold gasket was blowing.

After them telling me there was no fault with the car, I got the "technician" to put his nose behind the air filter on the engine so he could smell the exhaust fumes coming from the engine.

When they repaired the manifold gasket, they damaged the NO1 HEGO sensor, so I then had to drive around for two weeks with the MIL on, which has since damaged the catalytic converter, so it now constantly stinks of rotten eggs.

I have never had a car that squeaks and rattles so much; almost every fitted trim component rattles.

I have had to apply my own anti-squeak tape, as the dealer was saying it's a Fiesta characteristic to:

The door frames

The instrument cluster

The face vents

The seats

The performance is quite bad considering it's supposed to have 148BHP. It feels no quicker than my old Focus 1.8 Zetec.

The gearing is all wrong (too short), which doesn't help.

There is no low down torque, and there's a bad flat spot between 3,000 & 4,250 RPM.

Between 4,250 & 5,500 RPM, the car is like a little rocket, but who drives round at those revs all day.

The brakes are frighteningly bad; if you need to press on hard below 60MPH they are fine, but if you have to brake hard at motorway speeds, then they suffer from terrible fade to the point where I though I was going to snap the pedal the one day.

Also, when braking hard at speed, the rear end of the car wants to step out, which can be very un-nerving.

The front suspension is also way too hard for British "B" roads, to the point where it will try to take the steering wheel out of your hands.

For a 2.0 petrol though, it has quite good fuel economy; I get around 30MPG.

The paint finish is also quite good.

The only real good point was the price; I suppose you get what you pay for!