30th Mar 2003, 16:27

Did you really pay £13000 for the car in 2002?

I just bought an 02 model from a garage for £7500 with metallic and air con!

22nd Apr 2003, 05:35

Yes, I did pay that much! I probably should have gone with my head more than my heart, but like I said in the review I fell in love with it! The only niggling thing is that I'm paying a fortune for it and won't get half of it back when (and if) I trade it in. It doesn't bother me enough to stop enjoying the car though! Hope you're enjoying your model!

One thing I will mention, now it's a bit further down the line, is that I had some bother with the electrics just after I wrote the review. Notably, the CD player cutting out, rev counter needle zipping all over when idling, immobiliser light beside clock illuminating while driving and worst of all the engine cutting out - twice when coming to a halt and once practically all the revs died when I was travelling at 50ish MPH! Quite worrying. The dealer sorted it (bad earth apparently) after numerous phone calls: they never seemed to have a courtesy car available.

Other than that I'm still loving the car and again would recommend it to anyone looking for a 'super-mini'.

31st Jul 2003, 03:19

I've owned my W-reg Zetec-S for 2 years now and have mixed feelings on the car. The performance is okay, I've never been dusted by a Saxo thankfully, but then again the gearbox is quite nice and thanks to traction control you don't even have to take your foot off the accelerator when changing. The problems I have had so far are the electric windows not closing all the way, for which Ford would not fix under warranty. Eventually they did, but at a real hassle with customer services. The CD player keeps turning off, I believe this to be the keypad connection, as some of the buttons do not illuminate.

Forget upgrading the car though and getting mods, if you want a fast hot hatch don't buy this car, if you want something easy to run/maintain and cheap to insure with great handling then its perfect. As I said, I've had mine for 2 years now and find it a little bit cramped for long motorway journeys, so if your over 6 feet beware. Make sure you have a proper test drive in one.