The Focus Now Has A Companion...

[jmurray01]

As some of you who have followed my posts for years will know, my mother used to own a 1997 Ford Fiesta Ghia 5dr 1.25 (as seen in my avatar) which I always thought would be mine when I got around to learning to drive. Unfortunately that was not to be as in 2013 it failed its MOT for the 2nd year in a row on underbody corrosion and the overall cost to bring it back up to road worthiness would have been almost £500, and that was at a CHEAP garage we knew. That car was sold for £150 and as the registration number no longer shows anything on the DVLA website I'm lead to believe it has since been scrapped.

In April 2013 we bought the 2000 Ford Focus LX 1.8 which is still running and despite looking like it belongs in a scrapyard it has never once broken down. A true Ford, what can I say.

Anyway, the point of this thread is that we, or rather I, have purchased a Ford... Since last year I've had my provisional licence but never really had the money to invest in lessons so of course a car was the last thing on my mind, but yesterday a listing appeared on Gumtree with no photos, simply advertising a 2001 Ford Fiesta that needed brakes and an exhaust for sale for £100. Needless to say within an hour I'd secured the sale and last night we picked it up, but me being me I didn't pay the full price (although it was a bargain), but rather handed over £90 for the vehicle.

As I am still only on a provisional licence (although that will hopefully change in the next couple of months) my mother drove it home with me as a passenger and believe me, the brakes are shot. Only the offside seemed to be operating (the car pulls violently to the right when braking) and even at full pressure the car barely slows down.

Secondly, he also very accurately said that the exhaust needed replaced as the mid-to-rear pipe has completely detached from the rear silencer due to corrosion which results in the 1.3 Endura-E engine sounding like a mixture between a tractor and a boy-racer whilst ideling, and under even slight acceleration it is deafening. That isn't helped of course by the fact that the pipe is resting on the rear axel so of course it is reverberating through the chassis.

Once we got home and after I'd cleaned out all the discarded drinks cans and cigarette packets I did something that I really should have done at his house and opened the bonnet. Fortunately there was no visible corrosion in sight, but it is obvious that the car has not been cared for. The dipstick was completely dry except for a DROP on the very bottom and what a surprise - the brake fluid reservoir is almost completely empty!!

Nevertheless, the engine runs and the clutch and transmission (5 speed manual) are in good order so all is not bad.

I have had a look after it being parked overnight and cannot see any obvious brake line leakages so I'm not sure how the level got so low and thereby the brakes are barely usable. That said, there has to be a leak somewhere but for the purposes of testing the system I will top up the fluid this week and see if the brakes return to normal (albeit with obvious air in the lines), in which case it is just a simple leak somewhere that needs to be resolved. If with a full reservoir the brakes are still non-existant I may have more serious problems on my hands.

Before I do anything mechanically though I had to clean up the interior which I did when I got home from work this afternoon as it was complete and utter filth. The ash-tray alone was stuffed full of cigarette butts and when that was full it seems that the previous owner decided to just throw them on the floor. Don't get me wrong, I'm a smoker too and will smoke in the car, but is emptying the ash-tray every now and again really that hard?

The bottom line is though that for £90 I've bought myself a 2001 Ford Fiesta Flight with the 1.3 Endura-E engine and 90,000 miles on the odometer. It needs work both mechanically (which I will regrettably leave up to a mechanic as I have no off-road space to work on it) and also some bodywork repairs to be done which I will work on this summer. One big positive is that aside from the rust on the rear arches and a few spots along the bottom of the doors, there are NO scratches or dents anywhere, which is very rare for a Fiesta which usually has scuffs and bumps all over the place.

Right, I know that I've rattled on for a long time and I'll be surprised if you've made it this far! If so, then I'll leave you with some pictures of the car and although it may just be a 14 year old Fiesta, to me it is both a project and once I get my drivers licence it'll be my means of travel back and forth to work, also meaning I'll be able to accommodate longer hours and thereby earn more money!! And of course, being a Fiesta it'll easily attain 40MPG when driven at 50-55MPH in 5th gear.

[Phil 87]

Looks like a good project to try and get it working properly, and from what you said about the brakes you're lucky to have survived a journey in it lol :)

[Goodkat]

Bargain for £90, as a project motor. However, set yourself a budget and stick to it, it would be easy to throw loads of money at a £90 car and not make any back.

Those rear arches are in a bad way. If I had to guess I would say the inners are half-way gone too. You can slow it down, but the only way to stop it is to cut that out and weld in new metal.

What are the rear sills like?

In my opinion, having had a crusty money pit (granted, mine was a ST24) opened my eyes to shed motoring. I would go over it with a fine tooth comb, checking everything body wise to start, see which parts are rusted through (if any) and then look at he mechanical side of it.

I do not want to be the voice of treason, but there was probably a reason why it was up for £100. If it is a nasty little lemon, you will make money back easy by breaking it up.

I hope though, I sincerely do, that it is a good little car that serves you well.

[Phil 87]

^ Yeah I was suspecting the low price might mean they were hiding something, but hopefully it's just because they wanted shot of it instead of spending money and time fixing it. Couldn't they have got that much or more for scrapping it though?

[Goodkat]

Depends on the price of scrap steel really, or they may have been thinking someone could fix it up and run it.

When I am done with a car I tend to try to sell cheap, mainly because I have had my money's worth out of it and could be doing someone a favour. I hope this is the case for you!

Sent via the 'Clacks'

GNU STP

[jmurray01]

^ Yeah I was suspecting the low price might mean they were hiding something, but hopefully it's just because they wanted shot of it instead of spending money and time fixing it. Couldn't they have got that much or more for scrapping it though?

Yes I'm almost certain that was the case. The guy who sold it was living in a tiny flat and from the paper work that he had left lying about in the car I could see that he had lost his job so as the MOT was running out he probably just wanted money that day before it became illegal to park on the road.

Having experienced a corroding Fiesta in the past I know how they can escalate quickly which is why I'll be happy if I just get 1 year out of it to be honest.

If the car had a full MOT on it (and was cleaned up inside and out) it would be worth £400-500, so even if I have to spend a few hundred bringing it up to standard then it'll still be financially sensible.

With regards to being lucky to have got home alive - you're not wrong!!

[chrisroberson99]

Good luck! Looks like a nice little car and should be great once it's had some work doing to it. Try not to scrap it, they'll be rare in a few years!

[jmurray01]

I just went on to check the MOT history tonight on the DVLA website and it looks promising... Attached is a print screen of the last MOT the car had almost a year ago. Ironically we had the Focus in that same garage on the same day for it's last MOT - small world. I have to say though, the Focus's fail sheet was much larger than this one!!

Strangely there are no notes of the brakes or exhaust being in poor condition, which amazes me as I struggle to believe both issues arose and progressed so far when they were apparently non-existent 12 months ago...

[Phil 87]

^ I'm going to guess they didn't spot the problems, because maybe they weren't so bad back then. But I thought that's the point of an MOT, to check that the car is roadworthy and should still be roadworthy in a year's time.

[jmurray01]

^ I'm going to guess they didn't spot the problems, because maybe they weren't so bad back then. But I thought that's the point of an MOT, to check that the car is roadworthy and should still be roadworthy in a year's time.

Well to be honest, the purpose of an MOT is to prove that the car is roadworthy at the time they are inspecting it, so technically it could become un-roadworthy within 1 mile of the MOT station and the tester would not be at fault. It just depends on the tester and how much they pay attention to things that may become faults, rather than just the things that actually make a car an MOT failure at that moment.

I'm not that bothered to be honest, and am actually quite relieved that no corrosion was mentioned, although I am well aware that it could still be an issue this year.

We will see what happens, but I will do everything I can to keep one more Fiesta on the road. Too many have gone to the scrap heap and that will not be the case for this one I'm sure.

I have to laugh at the fact they marked the oil leak as dangerous! Yes, it leaks oil - just like our Focus does, but I'm going to bet that a few drops of oil per night won't cause the car to explode upon start-up...

[GingerFlame]

oil leak could cause dangerous road surfaces though ;)

[Phil 87]

Well to be honest, the purpose of an MOT is to prove that the car is roadworthy at the time they are inspecting it, so technically it could become un-roadworthy within 1 mile of the MOT station and the tester would not be at fault. It just depends on the tester and how much they pay attention to things that may become faults, rather than just the things that actually make a car an MOT failure at that moment.

Yeah you're probably right, like if the tyres were nearly down to the legal limit it would still pass, but would that be an advisory? I'm thinking more about corrosion and stuff that would need work doing shortly, should that also be an advisory or could a car fail the MOT if they think it'll start falling apart within a year?

[jmurray01]

Yeah you're probably right, like if the tyres were nearly down to the legal limit it would still pass, but would that be an advisory? I'm thinking more about corrosion and stuff that would need work doing shortly, should that also be an advisory or could a car fail the MOT if they think it'll start falling apart within a year?

The simple answer is no, with regards to whether it should fail if it will start falling apart within a year.

As long as the underbody passes the inspection at the time of the test (I believe it is just a visual inspection and then knocking it with a metal tool to see if it makes a metallic sound or a dull thud) and is deemed to be satisfactory then how long it will remain satisfactory is not taken into consideration.

Mind you, I could be wrong.

[Goodkat]

Well to be honest, the purpose of an MOT is to prove that the car is roadworthy at the time they are inspecting it, so technically it could become un-roadworthy within 1 mile of the MOT station and the tester would not be at fault. It just depends on the tester and how much they pay attention to things that may become faults, rather than just the things that actually make a car an MOT failure at that moment.

I'm not that bothered to be honest, and am actually quite relieved that no corrosion was mentioned, although I am well aware that it could still be an issue this year.

We will see what happens, but I will do everything I can to keep one more Fiesta on the road. Too many have gone to the scrap heap and that will not be the case for this one I'm sure.

I have to laugh at the fact they marked the oil leak as dangerous! Yes, it leaks oil - just like our Focus does, but I'm going to bet that a few drops of oil per night won't cause the car to explode upon start-up...

It depends what it is leaking on to on it's way back to the Earth too. If it is dropping say, on to a very hot exhaust that could be considered a fire risk. My brother once had a !Removed! poxhall scavalier that dumped a sump load in a 5 mile journey... That was dangerous.

Sent via the 'Clacks'

GNU STP

[Phil 87]

The simple answer is no, with regards to whether it should fail if it will start falling apart within a year.

As long as the underbody passes the inspection at the time of the test (I believe it is just a visual inspection and then knocking it with a metal tool to see if it makes a metallic sound or a dull thud) and is deemed to be satisfactory then how long it will remain satisfactory is not taken into consideration.

Mind you, I could be wrong.

I think you're probably right, and "how long it will remain satisfactory" is completely unknown anyway. It certainly wouldn't be possible to predict it anyway because there are far too many variables to think of.