2006 Ford Fiesta review from Romania

One year and a half after the purchase, annoying problems appeared with the electric system: ABS

and several other lights turned on, and the speed meter and the odometer stopped working.

I took the car to the dealer in order to have these problems repaired under warranty. They made an investigation and concluded that the ABS Module (electronic part) is defective and needs to be replaced. They also told me that the warranty for the car is now void because I did not take the car for the first annual service within one year (I did this at one year and five months, with 2800km on board). They said this condition was mentioned into the service booklet, which, however, has not been handed over to me, as mentioned earlier. At the same time they provided me with my service booklet, and indicated a paragraph which states that the warranty conditions. Up until that moment nobody told me that the 4-year warranty is lost in case of delay with the annual service (when buying the car, the salesman told me to come back for service before 15,000 km). The dealer also confirmed to me that technically, there is no link between the completion of a first service and the failure of the ABS module, however they said that company policy is that warranty is now void and that applies to all components.

Subsequently, the dealer quoted me 8500 RON (just over 2300 EUR or 3600 USD) for replacing the ABS module. This is an extremely high price, considering that the new car cost was about 10300 EUR including all taxes.

When calling the car importer company, the customer 'services' agent also informed me that the warranty for my 2200 km car is void and that they cannot do anything about this. He also refused to give me any contact points abroad, at Ford headquarters for example. It is actually impossible to contact Ford, all attempts to obtain phone numbers or e-mail address have failed.

I am now considering the option to put up an official complaint to the Consumers Protection Office in Romania. I will never again buy a Ford product, and will also make sure that none of my friends, family and business connections never buy a Ford product.

I am a Ford customer since 2002, when I bought my first new Ford Mondeo.

Ignoring the technical problems with my first Ford, in September 2006, I decided to buy a new FORD FIESTA as a second car from a Ford dealer. We subsequently bought the car, but have not received the service booklet under the reason that the dealer did not have any service booklets available at that date. I have purchased this car with a warranty of four years without kilometers limit.

The car currently clocks about 2800 km, a very low usage because this is our secondary car, the 'main' car being the Ford Mondeo acquired in 2002 - yet another piece of junk.