Faults:

Headlights go quite regularly.

General minor electrical problems such as rear wash/wipe stopped working, indicators broke.

Found the rear wheel barrings problematic, had to replace both during ownership.

General Comments:

Despite its age, this car never let me down. It looked rubbish, drove rubbish, sounded rubbish, but it's like a tank, never had a mechanical problem with the car. The engine provided good acceleration and power in lower gears, but lacked real bite from 50mph upwards.

Under its dour shell, my Escort always provided me with a reliable, reasonably quick and easy to drive car, which is exactly what I needed out of my first car.

Faults:

When first brought the car suddenly got a loud tapping and the engine seized up! Required a new engine.

Boot leaked could keep gold fish in the spare wheel bay.

Sold it sharply due to loud tapping coming back.

General Comments:

This car is seriously slow and handles like a pram. You definatly need a good stereo to drown out all the knocks and creeks.

Had 5 spoke alloys on it and still looked dull.

No extras on vehicle at all only thing it did was make a noise when left your lights on.

Very poor mpg was a 1.4 and only managed about 27 to the gallon!

Faults:

Intermittent central locking fault. If the key is turned in the lock in an attempt to unlock the car, the car will unlock and then immediately lock itself again.

Intermittent electric windows fault. The windows will occasionally stick down and fail to come up when the button is pressed.

General Comments:

The 1.4 Escort is okay for driving around town and short journeys, but it's a heavy car with a small engine, so really lacks power for anything more.

It's slow to accelerate and is no fun to drive.

There is a lot of engine and wind noise at motorway speeds and the interior starts to rattle if you go much above 70 mph.

The electrics seem to be a problem. Both the electric windows and the central locking have gone wrong.

The engine uses old technology and it's a heavy car with a small motor so it's not as economical as you might think. The best you can expect to get from it is around 32 mpg combined.

But it's not all bad. The boot is very roomy compared to most of the other small hatches available.

Escorts are all cheap now so you may as well get the 1.6 16 valve. It's not much more expensive to insure and is actually more economical than the 1.4 due to the newer technology in the engine. It's also far quicker to accelerate, less noisy and feels less strained at higher speeds and when overtaking.

Faults:

The driver's side electric window motor packed up the day after I bought the car. Local mechanic fixed it for £70 using a second hand motor.

Coolant Fan didn't work. Again fixed by local mechanic for peanuts.

General Comments:

After having a escort that went wrong every time I looked at it I was a bit reluctant to buy this motor, but as it was so cheap and having a full service history I decided to take the plunge. What a decision that was!

Cheap to run and insure, plenty space for the family and reliability that has been second to none, this car has been the best I've ever had!

Okay, so the performance is far from earth-shattering, but it's good enough. The seats are comfy and long journeys are effortless. The steering is maybe a bit too light, but so what? If you are wanting budget, no thrills motoring then this has to be one of the cars to consider.

All in all the best car I've ever owned, but, alas the family is growing and I'll have to get rid (unfortunately!). Don't know what I'll get next, but after the reliability of this car it'll definitley be another Ford!