Hello all,
I am interested in buying a 2002 plate Fiesta Zetec S 1.6. I've looked on car review sites and tried to get a picture of what they're like to own but there seems to be a lot of variety in peoples opinions. If anyone owns or owned one, could they tell me a bit about them, the pros and cons etc?
Thank You
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If a spine-jarring ride is your cup of tea then it's for you, I suppose. Personally, I not one for that type of car as ride comfort is higher up my list than going round bends on two wheels! But then again, I'm old now.
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If you are looking at the MK5 beware of rust in a number of places such as rear arches, seat mounting points and around the rear lights. The body on the MK5 is not galvanised so beware. The later 2002 onwards MK6 is galvanized and is much better in terms of body durability. If you do go for a MK5 model make sure that you have plenty of waxoyl available!
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We had a 2000 X (mk5) Zetec-S for 18 months, and sold it only because it kept attracting the attention of the local vandals (we lived in a dodgy area at the time).
Overall, it was a cracking little car and I would recommend it / buy another.
Truly fantastic handling. Loads of grip up front, and you can play with the balance on the throttle, even inducing a bit of oversteer if the mood takes you.
Nicely servoed brakes with plenty of bite (despite drums on rear)
Quick geared, weighty steering with bags of feel.
Peppy performance, but not what you would call quick. Lovely smooth Yamaha co-developed engine is sweet and willing, as well as utterly reliable. Good for around 35 mpg driven "normally".
We bought ours with 9000 miles on the clock and sold it at 22000 miles. In that time it needed one service (£150 at main dealer) and a set of front suspension arm bushes.
A single, sharp "knock" within a few metres of the first pull away from startup sounds a bit alarming, but is actually perfectly normal. It's the traction control system "self testing".
Listen very carefully for any clonks from the front suspension over sharp bumps and speed ramps. Mk4/5 Fiestas eat wishbone and anti roll bar bushes. Not expensive or difficult to fix, but something to batter the price down on.
Check for rust on the rear arches and peel back the door rubbers along the sills and up the B-pillars. These are the main rot-points.
Make sure the heater temperature control works properly. The heater control valve that sits in the pipework going to the heater matrix is notorious for seizing up. It can't be repaired, but is about £30 for a pattern part and about half an hour to fit DIY.
On the test drive, turn the heater control to cold, and give it some beans for a couple of miles. Make sure the temperature gauge doesn't climb over the half way mark. There have been reports of a batch of duff heater valves which do not have sufficient bypass capability when turned to cold, and which restrict the flow of coolant around the engine. This didn't affect our Z-S, but it did affect our current mk4 1.4 Chicane. It seems to affect certain genuine Ford valves with part number beginning 98. The original valves (96xxxx part number) did not have this problem, but the story I heard through an owners club member was that Ford switched suppliers for these valves midway through production, and these later valves from the new supplier don't always work properly. Ford were pleading complete ignorance when I had the problem, but swapping the valve for a pattern part off Ebay cured it permanently (unfortunately after I had replaced the water pump, radiator and heater matrix!) at a cost of about £250..
Very helpful owners club / website: www.zsoc.com
A good, cheap fun car. My only gripe really was that it wasn't as quick as it looked, but I couldn't knock it for fun.
Cheers
DP
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I had a 2000 (W) one of these from new for two and a half years. As a young male it was a great car to have. I agree with the other posts so far, it looked good, handled very well though not especially quick but did have a harder ride than sportier cars I have owned since.
Being a Fiesta of that age, the 'old-fashioned' shape means it's really easy to park and maintenance and running costs should be excessive. Insurance was group 8 and I had 36mpg overall from mine.
Mine was Imperial Blue, which was a colour unique to that that model. I much preferred the blue interior on that colour (as well as the silver) to the red interior and pink steering wheel on the red or black models.
There was no evidence of rust but you could tell that the arches would rust in the same way my first car did, a 1990 Fiesta.
I managed to seize the rear brakes by washing the car once. I asked a garage to look at them and they had trouble finding replacement bits - they were just drums but different to other Fiestas.
James
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