1999 Ford Fiesta 1.25 Si review from France

The first problem I had was not due to the car, but to the dealer!!! When I purchased the car, when I drove home, I opened the bonnet and noticed that he admission was not connected to the air filter case!! the car was running with unfiltered air... a luck I noticed it immediately, a bad point for the dealer... not the only one though, they did not admit their fault...

At 15000, the car had a regular service, and they noticed that the front axle was not correctly worn from the beginning, and the front tires were irregularly worn and needed to be replaced. the dealer did not accept anything... and those tyres are expensive!

At 60000 km, I had to service the brakes : front disks worn, and one rear drum defective.

At 90000 km, the heater control died, and we made a 600 km journey, in summer, with the heating at the maximum!!! I simply needed to replace it (about 40 euro).

At the same time, someone tried to force the door a night, trying to bend its upper part. the door resisted perfectly (good!), but the rubber joint, damaged, needed to be replaced. The problem is that the price of that simple rubber joint is 50 euro!

This Fiesta is a robust car, most of the problems I had were due to the dealer's incompetency. Except for the brakes and the heater command, nothing was defective.

The engine is really good, offers very good performance (170km/h, very good accelerations) and extremely efficient from 1500 to 6000 tr/min!

It is really pleasant to use.

No oil consumption (I use synthetic 5W40, changed every 7500 km)

The fuel consumption is simply average, about 7 liters/100 km.

The road holding is good, but the tires are too wide : 185/55 HR 14.

This car does not need so wide tires for 75hp, and this dimension is scarce and expensive (about 100 euro minimum in car part shop, much more at the Ford dealer's!!! It is useful to search better bargains on Internet)

The brakes are not so great IMHO, because the wheels are easily blocked, (much more than in my previous car, which did not benefit from ABS either).

The interior equipment is average, and it seems that the designers did not make any effort to improve it or find original ideas to make it more convenient. the quality of the plastics is simply average.

The bumpers are painted, which seems to me a stupid idea, but when I look some others Ford (Fiesta or Ka) in the streets which do not have painted bumpers, it seems not so bad in that particular case.. because the plastic used seems to be of very bad quality!

The car handles well, the direction is assisted, but not too much : you still have a "natural" sensation.

The rear seat can be folded, but it does not give as much space as you can expect because the lower part of the seat is fixed : you cannot move it and obtain a flat floor. It would have been simple though to make it much more convenient!