The £260 Fiesta

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maxdb

Original Poster:

1,533 posts

156 months

Sunday 25th August 2019
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The backstory..

The engine of the girlfriends Corsa went this week so a replacement was needed. I think I did start a thread for that car a long time ago but it never got updated. The Corsa was bought last year for around £500 (maybe a little more) and needed some work doing - it has mis-matched tyres all round, and the arb bushed were worn out. It was the 3 cylinder 1L version and the timing chain went. I wasn't a massive fan of the car as time went on and rarely drove it.



So the replacement!!

I just stumbled across this on Facebook Marketplace. The advert read:

Looking for a quick sale
Need gone by the end of the day
Ford Fiesta Ghia
5 Door
1.4 Petrol, Manual transmission
87,500 Miles
MOT until May 2020
Bump on front passenger side, see pictures
Open to offers
Feel free to message me for more information

Few pics from the advert:





As you can see there is from front bumper damage. I went around to have a look and the damage appears cosmetic. I noticed that the coolant level was low but could not see any leaks. There was no insurance on the car at the time so I couldn't test drive it but I turned it on and it all started fine, no warning lights, no smokey exhaust and no funny noises, the engine got up to temp ok so maybe it's just low coolant. The coolant bottle was new so maybe they didn't put enough coolant back in who knows..

Despite the possible head gasket issue we bought the car - It was up for £300 but we got them down to £250, however I ended up paying £260 though as the nearby cashpoint didn't have any £10 notes left biggrin The reason for sale was that the owner bought a new car so just wanted to get rid of this one and was let down by her friends. I also suspect this was taking up too much room on their drive given the amount of cars they had.

With the insurance sorted out I took the car out for a 5-10 minute drive. The brakes are not the best but everything else seemed ok and I must admit the car is miles quieter than the Corsa it's replaced.

So known issues:

- It needed a clean. Admittedly it wasn't too bad when we bought it given the price but it's good to clean a car as you might find other issues on the way.

- The steering wheel is a bit manky
- It's missing some trim on the rear door on the drivers side (plastic triangle above the door card)
- Aerial is broken
- The volume button doesn't work on the stereo and it doesn't turn off but the steering column controls work ok
- Plastic trim in the passenger footwell missing
- Button on the dash to open the rear hatch doesn't work
- Bonnet slightly damaged
- Grill Damaged
- Damage to the front and rear bumpers
- Paintwork bit rubbish with various marks and scratches, dried bird poo on the roof
- Washer fluid cap broken
- Brakes crappy
- Possible HGF (worse case scenario)
- Drivers side repeater loose and reflectors different each side
- Plastic boot trim missing
- Ford badges look work

As you can see most of the stuff is cosmetic and being such a cheap car there will be some niggles.

Here's the good points:

- MOT until May 2020
- Matching front tyres
- Good tyre tread all around
- Wipers all working and look to be in good condition
- Car looks quite dry and cannot see any obvious signs of rust
- Comes with 2 keys
- The remote central locking works
- All the doors and windows work as they should
- Only 2-3k since the last MOT
- Engine appears to be in good shape
- More space than the Corsa C it replaced

maxdb

Original Poster:

1,533 posts

156 months

Sunday 25th August 2019
quotequote all
1st Job - giving it a clean biggrin

Engine bay before:



i gave it a clean down followed by some Autoglym bumper and gel applicant.

Engine bay after:



Interior before:



I didn't really take many pics of the interior beforehand. Here's a few of the carpet afterwards and showing some stains I couldn't get out:





Pic of the dash prior to cleaning:



For the interior I used Meguires Interior Detailer for the plastics with Simoniz upholstery and Carpet Cleaner for the roof lining and seats and door car fabric and some Rain X glass cleaner for the windows:



Gave the outside a wash and wax with some Demon tyres to make the tyres shiny:





You can see the dried on bird poo a bit in this next pic. I might dig out the clay car at some point and see what I can do with it. The car also might get a machine polish at some point I just need to get some more pads 1st:





Edited by maxdb on Sunday 25th August 23:05

Eyersey1234

2,895 posts

78 months

Sunday 25th August 2019
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Nicely bought OP

maxdb

Original Poster:

1,533 posts

156 months

Sunday 25th August 2019
quotequote all
Odd jobs:

Fixed the plastic hanging down in the boot. Turns out it wasn't screwed in for some reason.

Before:



Found some screws in the shed that fitted so a free fix!

After:



Side repeater before:



it looks like it the drivers side suffered from a light scrape at some point in it's life and I cannot get the indicator to clip in. I found some double sided number plate tape in the shed and wrapped it around the indicator. It stuck back in fine after: I'll probably buy a matching set off Ebay at some point but I just wanted to secure it for now.



Front passenger side door trim:



I noticed this was loose when cleaning the car but found some 3m double sided pads in the shed so fitted 3 of these behind the trim to stick it back into place.

Other stuff to do:



Clean the gunk out of this - I assume it may of happened when the old coolant bottle broke. If not then there's something wrong with the drivers suspension.



How can someone break a washer fluid cap?? New one to be obtained..



The bonnet is bent slightly outwards on the passenger side so I plan to give it a whack with a rubber mallet to make it sit a little better. The bare metal will be covered with touch up paint at some point.



Rear bumper cracked - the number plate screws will have covers added before the screws decide to rust up.The bumpers seem cheap enough to replace I'm just going to keep an eye out for any cars being broken.

I'll get the car booked in to get the coolant flushed soon and to get the front brakes looked at/replaced if needed.

MC Bodge

21,552 posts

174 months

Sunday 25th August 2019
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An excellent buy.

We have a face-lift one from a couple of years later. It drives really well on Rainsport tyres.

The engine performance isn't too bad either.

For the brakes, I'd recommend a few hard stops in reverse to get the self-adjusters to move in the rear drums (if the pedal stays long, then removing the drums and cleaning and moving the adjusters may help) . When we were given ours, the brakes felt quite poor, but after a bit of hard use and the hard reverse stops they improved a lot.


pixelatedJH

225 posts

112 months

Monday 26th August 2019
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Lovely car. I had one and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The suspension turrets full of rust:
They fill with water and then rust. This is usually just cosmetic, but it makes the suspension struts an incredible pain to take apart. I filled mine with grease to keep water out, some people cover with grommets.

The coolant:
Check the thermostat housing, mine was dripping down the front of the sump. You should see drops of red coolant. Replacing the housing requires either tiny hands or removal of the belts.

My expansion tank also had a crack in the side which lost a little coolant, and the lid stopped sealing properly. Maybe worth doing the lot if you find them in a breakers.

Other stuff:
Keep an eye out for snapped springs. They don’t rust (much). The front wing tends to collect stone chips both sides behind the wheels, so it can be worth a going over with touch up paint. The stereo is an absolute nightmare to replace, but doable. Spark plugs can get stuck on because of water dripping from the washer jets. Power steering pump can be noisy, changing the fluid with a turkey baster made mine a lot quieter.

Enjoy the car!

Eyersey1234

2,895 posts

78 months

Monday 26th August 2019
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I had a 56 reg face-lift one for 12 years and 173k miles, was a good dependable car. I had the expansion tank crack on mine, at least they are easy to change.

DevonLad

770 posts

181 months

Monday 26th August 2019
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As for the steering wheel, I replaced a rather manky one in mine with a mint condition leather one bought from ebay for £25 delivered. Very easy to replace but as you have to disconnect the battery make sure you have the stereo code.

p4cks

6,885 posts

198 months

Monday 26th August 2019
quotequote all
Good buy and looks like it’s being looked after now.

My £500 Focus was in similar condition inside and the steering wheel was especially sticky. I used Lidl’s All Purpose Cleaner and a small brush to clean mine and it came up a treat. Dry with micro fibre cloth and you’ll see how much dirt gets lifted!

Hope the coolant issue isn’t too serious either.

Oh and radio codes are 99p on eBay

maxdb

Original Poster:

1,533 posts

156 months

Tuesday 27th August 2019
quotequote all
Thanks for the comments - there's some good tips I will try out and to be honest I never thought about the radio code matter smile

I've checked the coolant and all is well - no leaks or change of colour. I'm still going to get the coolant flushed and changed to be on the safeside as the old coolant didn't have much colour to it and I hope distilled water was used instead of tap water..

I checked the suspension and the water inside had dried out leaving a nice orange/brown mess:



I put some WD40 and grease on it to tidy it up and ordered some grommets for £2.99 to cover them up. I also bought some number plate screw covers for £1.50.



Looking at the wheel it looks a bit beyond saving



The plastics around the stereo also aren't the best so I'll look to get that replaced at some point. In the meantime I found someone local breaking a Fiesta so for £50 I got a bunch of stuff



We have

- Footwell trim
- Gear knob/gaiter
- Grill
- Screenwash cap

I swapped the badges over as the original badge was in better condition

[url]

I gave the parts a bit of a clean up







Knob comparison biggrin



The knew knob is shorter and smaller than the old one but it fits around the rubber gaitor ok. The leather gaitor it was dirty and worn and the girlfriend preferred the rubber one.



Footwell plastic added




I took a rubber mallet to the bonnet to try and sort the bend out a bit. There's a slight improvement but I don't want to over do it given my non-existent panel beating experience. It was great fun either way.

Updated engine bay and grill bits - I wasn't a fan of the chrome..




When fitting a grill I noticed a bit of an issue...



It looks like the car hit the post a bit harder than I thought frown

I've checked around it and it's not hitting the radiator. Hopefully it won't cause issues when replacing the bumper.

A few other observations I've not noticed --

Heated windscreen!! - I only thought the Focus had these but admittedly my knowledge on Fords isn't the greatest



Despite some kerbing the wheels seem to be in ok shape with no obious signs of corrosion



A nice shiny Aux belt - I'll look to get this replaced soon



The sight of that belt makes me wonder about the timing belt. From what I read they should be replaced at every 100k or 10 years but some places recommend shorter mileages. The cars on 87k and is now 15 years old. The service history stopped in 2013



It looks like someone left the radiocode on the back though smile[



I'll see if I can check the condition of the belt.

Costs to date:

Coolant - £12.50
Rubber grommets - £2.99
Number plate screw covers - £1.50
Door trim (awaiting delivery) - £12.99
Bunch of parts/spares - £50.00

Total spend including car - £339.98


maxdb

Original Poster:

1,533 posts

156 months

Wednesday 18th September 2019
quotequote all


Big bill alert!!

This month it was time to sort out a few things. I did a few hard reverses which did improve the braking but when driving down a fast road doing about 50mph I noticed some vibrations through the wheel under braking which suggested a warped disc. It wasn't noticeable at lower speeds of around 30mph so I booked it in the garage for the following

- New front discs and pads
- Change the Aux belts as you have to have the wheel off etc for access
- Coolant flush and change

With the labour it cost the same price as the car cost me biggrin

After nearly a month of ownership now the car hasn't lost any coolant and the engine bay has kept itself clean unlike my Mazda that gets dusty every 5 mins.. Now the aux belts are done I want to check the timing belt if I can to see what condition it's in. I also want to check the throttle body as sometimes on cold starts it doesn't want to idle properly and cut out but once warmed up its absolutely fine.



Another thing that needed addressing was the wipers as the old ones on the car were the wrong size and the same length each side which meant they didn't go all the way up the window on the drivers side. This might be fine if your'e a midget and can only see half way up the windscreen but I'm not so they got changed with some Bosch ones sourced from Halfords. As both were the wrong size they both had to be replaced biggrin



Next up was the aerial - a new base was bought on Ebay along with an aerial to go with it and overall it cost about £10.




The girlfriend is pleased as she can now listen to cr*ppy Heart instead of her Greatest Showman CD..

The interior still needs a few things done. The steering wheel got replaced as the old one was beyond saving.

Old wheel:



It was an absolute pain trying to get the airbag off as you have to unclip via a hole in the back of the steering wheel but after a long time and a lot of swearing we got there



New wheel:



Luckily the new wheel doesn't have any writing like the ST wheels do on the bottom, otherwise it will just look out of place with the rest of the interior. Whilst the battery was disconnected I took the time to remove the telematics box as it was getting in the way.



I tried to clean up the stereo/heater surround but the plastics gone all funny on that too where it's aged and been in the sun for ages. I got a bit carried away on Ebay and found a a replacement. Apparently the replacement is a rare piece thats sprayed black and come with some ST stripes but luckily the ST stripes aren't too visible.

Current surround:



New surround with other bits I ordered




It does have a small crack in that was mentioned when advertised but it's nothing too obvious and it was only £5-£10 more than the usual unsprayed plastic ones so it will work out cheaper than getting a spare and spraying it.

MC Bodge

21,552 posts

174 months

Wednesday 18th September 2019
quotequote all
What was wrong with the steering wheel?

Have you had the new brake pads fitted yet? I would recommend getting some OEM standard ones, Ferodo or Delphi. Probably more like 45quid and will perform better.

maxdb

Original Poster:

1,533 posts

156 months

Wednesday 18th September 2019
quotequote all
The steering wheel was worn and looking tired so just fitted a new one in a better condition. Both front discs and pads have been fitted but I'm not sure on the brand. The brakes now work fine though smile

maxdb

Original Poster:

1,533 posts

156 months

Sunday 20th October 2019
quotequote all
Trims:

New trims fitted







There's a few clips loose on the doorcard and i stupidly scratched the stereo fitting the trim so I might replace the stereo at some point.

Lights:

New sidelights ordered/fitted along with some silvervision style front indicators. One of the old bulbs was ok but the other was faded and flaking away. Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of the offending bulb so you will have to look at a boring orange bulb pic instead biggrin



Fitting the drivers side bulb was interesting as you have to move the expansion tank out the way. Luckily it was easy enough to do as you just have to use a 10mm and lift it up.



No more faded front indicators or fried egg looking front lights!



Time to fix the side repeaters - I ended up getting a pair and replacing them both as they come in different styles and the old drivers one is already different to the passenger one.



Perfect fitment and the bulb doesn't have to be secured in the holder with masking tape!



The parts weren't expensive with £5.39 being spent on the silver indicator bulbs and £12.99 being spent on the side repeaters.

Eyersey1234

2,895 posts

78 months

Sunday 20th October 2019
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I used to have the face-lift and it was a PITA changing any bulbs as the headlamp unit had to come out, obviously Ford didn't consider maintenance when face-lifting it.

SteBrown91

2,360 posts

128 months

Sunday 20th October 2019
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Not sure why you bothered removing the expansion tank - in prefacelifts the grille lifts out on clips then it’s 3 bolts to remove the whole light

p4cks

6,885 posts

198 months

Sunday 20th October 2019
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How much does it owe you now?


miken2k8

362 posts

82 months

Sunday 20th October 2019
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Why bother with all these jobs? it's a 260 pound car by the time you've finished you'll wish you had just gone and bought a nice one in the first place I would drive this till it breaks then scrap it.

mwstewart

7,554 posts

187 months

Sunday 20th October 2019
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Good buy and good work - you've really turned it around!

Cloudy147

2,705 posts

182 months

Sunday 20th October 2019
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I really enjoy this thread. It might not make.much financial sense over the long term, but I do enjoy seeing/reading about a banger getting fixed up.

Great work!