2001 Ford Fiesta Flight 1.3

Summary:

A fun, cheap little car - perfect for new drivers!

Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

This is my first car, and I couldn't have asked for a better one.

It's nice and nippy around town - you can easily get it into any parking space, and it loves to slip into tight spaces in traffic and on roundabouts!

On open roads it holds itself rather well for a small car - the only thing is that you need to change down to 4th gear to overtake, which uses more fuel, obviously.

I recently took the car on a 400 mile motorway run. I'm happy to say that it averaged 60MPG, and that I was still comfortable at the end of the journey - no back or neck ache!

Obviously, the old Endura engine can get quite noisy during acceleration, and you need to leave a large gap in between 2nd, 3rd and 4th gear shifts to pick up speed quickly (which drowns out the radio for a short period of time).

However, this is a small price to pay for such a fun little car. I would recommend it to ALL new drivers - brilliant!

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 20th June, 2010

2001 Ford Fiesta Zetec S Mk5 1.6 16v

Summary:

The Zetec S is a comfortable, sporty drivers car, and very modifiable

Faults:

Nothing.

I do not however like the restricted build of the car, such as the integrated manifold and the very restricted inlet system.

General Comments:

I Love this car, my previous car was a VTS Mk2 Saxo, I found that the VTS was marginally quicker (really owning both the difference isn't major), just in the higher range.

A lot of people have said the Saxo handles better. This is down to the view that the Saxo's back end is more stuck, but this comes with very bad feel and under-steer.

The Fiesta is an A1 drivers car, and with my Gaz coilovers feels well poised and can out handle many top end hot hatches. There is also a lot of info for the driver, you can feel the road while still maintaining a comfortable ride.

More to the point, the ZS is a Ford so modifications of the power variety are more effective, although the Saxo can be epicly fast, it hits a wall that thanks to the help of companies like Raceline, and Shawpeed the Fiesta breaks through.

Mine now has an FRP engine with better cams, mapping and it's completely stripped out. My Saxo had many mods and run at 140bhp.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know

Review Date: 16th August, 2008

2001 Ford Fiesta 1.3

Summary:

The car with no brakes or engine

Faults:

The car has never given any trouble due to low miles from old person that had it before. It seems to have only been driven to church.

General Comments:

The car looks a little stupid looking and too girly. The car does have a good amount of room inside it. Despite a small car, you can fit just about most things in it. The boot is not too bad either.

The ride is typical of a small car of this type, and the gearbox is so awful; it feels as vague as driving blind. You never seem to know if you put the car into gear, until you realize you didn't and the car is now slowing down.

Which ever way the pedals were designed, the accelerator only seems to move about 1mm; whether this was simply to accurately represent the performance of this motor I can only assume. The rev counter is also absent, so you instead of knowing what rpm you are doing, you are given the joys of a white traced car where green arrows flash to show if you are indicating; much more useful I think.

The engine seems to be based on a under powered lawn motor engine. There is no horsepower at any point in the rev band. Simply going through the rev band rewards you as the car gives less and less. At about 5500 rpm the downward rev graph would read about 3 bhp. One could argue well less performance will equal better mpg! Wrong, one would assume that this car could easy see a 45plus mpg, but since the engine needs to be worked so hard it seems to drink fuel. Motorway driving is simply pointless; any attempts to overtake a lorry will leave you for 13 minutes in the overtaking lane going backwards.

The brakes I find really poor. I am used to more expensive cars, and thus I think this is why I found the brakes so poor. I took the car into the garage explaining the car would not stop. He checked through this fault too, then a few hours later explain there was in-fact no fault. I then changed my driving style to start braking about 6 miles before the on-coming round-about.

Kit for this car is fairly basic. But has airbags; a big plus when you can't stop for that Passat in-front which braked.

Overall the car has a quite useful space. With airbags as standard it seems up to date.

It is a low insurance group, which I can't understand, since they have no brakes. It has not fallen apart like the previous model. But it suffers a stupid cute looking smiley face, which lacks the aggressive look of the previous model.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No

Review Date: 28th June, 2008

28th Aug 2008, 04:00

Hello there...

We have a Ford Fiesta Flight 2001... I totally agree with you about the brakes... the pedal is not only stiff but I feel so unsafe driving it. Selling ours now for the newer version. Hopefully... a lot better as I have been lead to believe.

20th Jun 2010, 16:50

I completely disagree with you.

I think you've exaggerated how vague the gears are: I've never once failed to put it into gear.

I think that for what it is - a small car built for city and occasional long distance - it's surprisingly nimble and responsive.

I'd rather drive this than a 2001 Vauxhall Corsa or Peugeot 106!