Problem with the heater. Even when set to cold, hot air would still come out. Ford dealer didn't know how to fix it.
Economical, quite fun to throw into corners but tends to gather momentum rather than accelerate.
The non-functioning heater control is a common fault of Ford Fiestas, Kas and the like.
The thing is that there´s a bypass valve from the cooling circuit to the heater, that usually gets stuck from not changing the coolant regularily.
The stuck valve causes the printed circuit in the heater control to burn, making it useless. (The valve works pretty much as the air idle air valve in the engine).
The only remedy for this is replacing the heater bypass valve AND the heater control dash (pretty expensive). Or having a technician install an on/off switch that selects full heater or no heater at all.
Here in Argentina we´re used to fix things rather than just replacing them. I happen to know an electronic technician that specializes in repairing that kind of circuits at about 1/5 of the price of a new heater control dash. And he gives a 1-year warranty (more than Ford´s 3 month for the new part..)
If well maintained, the Fiesta/Ka heater works great. Just remember to change the coolant every couple of years.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed 
is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site