1981 Ford Cortina Mark V GL review from Australia and New Zealand

Thing that had do be done 3 days after purchase:

Front brake hoses

Front radius arm bushes

Front brake pads

Both tie rod ends

Both bottom ball joints

Water pump and cambelt

Wire spot light up to WOF standard

Steering rack boot.

One month after purchase the fuel line feel out of the carb and caught fire, the car was a write off by the time we got the fire out.

When your young you don't listen to your folks, if I had it would saved me a lot of money!

I save this car and just had to have it, so I did. The dealer got a new WOF on the vehicle and I picked it up. Everything was great for the first 2 days then I noticed that it wasn't handling all that well. Took it to the workshop my Dad uses and they went to town on it. Most of the stuff in the list about, the car should have failed its WOF on. After many phone calls with the dealer and the workshop that did the original WOF they finally payed for the repairs, since the car was sold in a very unsafe condition (but we had to get the Land Transport Safety people to put a bit of pressure on them)

After all of this the car was great. Not too bad on fuel, seats were good.

Unfortunately, I can't really give much more of a review of the car because a month after I purchased it, the fuel line to the carb fell off onto the manifold, and caught fire. The car was written off by the time fire was put out. I later found out that this is common on older Fords. This was a bad first car, purchased from a bad dealer, its only the fact I learned to drive in Dads great Mark 4 Cortina wagon, that I would own another Ford.