Faults:

Turbo waste gate was seized when I first bought it. Alternator failed after the first couple of months, and that has been it for the last 25 years. Just the normal wear and tear.

Apart from all the mods I have done to it over the years.

General Comments:

I still remember the first time I saw this car at the car sales and had to have it. Took me a year to save up and buy it. By then nearly everybody local had taken this turbo for a test drive and thrashed it.

Still drive it today and still love it.

Faults:

Did the engine mounts due to taking off rapidly.

Driver side window regulator broke, but brought a new one for $35 from the wreckers.

General Comments:

Pretty zippy car go's well.

It has a 5-speed manual which is a lot better than my last car which was 4 speed.

With it being a Laser Ghia it has Brown velour interior and very comfortable seats.

I have put a stereo which consists of a head unit, 4 inch front speakers, 6x9's in the parcel shelf, 4x800 watt amp and 2 10" Boss sub woofers.

Faults:

I blew the motor at 230,000 but replaced it with a 1.3 bored out to a 1.5 with high performance parts.

I blew the gear box two days after I got it and replaced it with a 5 speed meteor gear box.

I snapped the engine mounts (all three)and replaced them with KC laser mounts and added engine chains because of the torque.

The seats tore and were replaced with TX3 Turbo bucket seats.

I melted the exhaust manifold and fixed that with custom stainless extractors.

General Comments:

Overall once I chaned some of the parts it was extremely quick, handled awesomely in the dry and was very comfortable.

Faults:

Head gasket blew, pretty easy to do if your temperature gauge doesn't work properly.

Loose seats, seat bolts were lost and threaded so they couldn't be replaced.

Denting, body dented very easily.

General Comments:

This car is a great first car. Very light on petrol - getting around 350km to a tank. A tank usually costs about $27 at 95 cents a litre.

Although it is pretty small, the seats are very comfortable, well in the front anyway. If the driver is tall, or has long legs, then there is no leg room left in the back.

I got this for my first car and it served me well. Very reliable, does pretty good burnouts for such a small car.

Because of it's size and lack of support, i.e. impact bars in doors and so on, it doesn't hold up too well in a crash.

Faults:

Flat battery, bad intertior

General Comments:

It's a very high performance car and has a top speed of 210km.

Faults:

When I was given the car, the body was in a pretty bad state, but the interior was excellent.

I have had to replace a few parts.

Heater knob broke.

Battery went flat.

Park brake was hard to use.

Door skin was wobbly.

General Comments:

Being a Ghia, the interior is nice, and the car has a lot of options.

Great to drive, heaps of room, and it has been pretty reliable, considering how it first came.

Faults:

The only things out of the ordinary are:

Front shock burst through after hitting a huge hole in the road.

Broke crankshaft racing a truck on the highway. I had to change the engine after that.

Seats wore out.

Headlights faded and had to be replaced.

Windshield started to leak.

Worst of all the steering rack mount detached from the front sub frame resulting in expensive repair job. This seems to be a common problem on these cars.

General Comments:

Although considered a "granny's" car by the less informed, the ford laser is screaming with potential.

It is quite zippy for a car of its power class. Braking and handling are both exceptional. You need to have the 5-forward gearbox though as the the 4-forward and the 3 speed automatic are just too weak and slow.

As with any car as old as this, it needs to be reguraly maintained in order to keep it working properly. Parts are hard to find and I've had to substitute parts from other cars on many occasions.

The chassis has also become rather floppy and needs to be braced.

As stock... the laser is not such a fantastic car, but give it a good work over, maintain it regularly and it will perform as good as any brand new modern car, for a tenth of the cost.