I am FINALLY a Fiesta driver!!!!

[Michael P]

7,30am bought with it the chance for me to finally drive the car that has been sitting on my drive for months!

It's a hell of a lot different to the Shitanto! The steering was the first hurdle (no PAS) which i have got used to pretty quickly. Then the increase in power! not much increase but what is there makes all the different when excellerating in 2nd and cruising at 60, far less strain on the engine.

I gave it a quick wash and not the detail i promised it, i detailed my friend's Mum's BMW 318d Tourer instead, it came out good! The only reason i gave mine the once over was that it was caked in salt.

Overall, a very happy bunny! although i won't be able to drive it for the next two days as i'm away! :(

[aph1101]

7,30am bought with it the chance for me to finally drive the car that has been sitting on my drive for months!

It's a hell of a lot different to the Shitanto! The steering was the first hurdle (no PAS) which i have got used to pretty quickly. Then the increase in power! not much increase but what is there makes all the different when excellerating in 2nd and cruising at 60, far less strain on the engine.

I gave it a quick wash and not the detail i promised it, i detailed my friend's Mum's BMW 318d Tourer instead, it came out good! The only reason i gave mine the once over was that it was caked in salt.

Overall, a very happy bunny! although i won't be able to drive it for the next two days as i'm away! :(

Yay!! I bet you're over the moon :D I'm glad you didn't find the lack of PAS too difficult and that its got a bit more grunt than the shitanto B)

Did you get any piccies??

[Michael P]

Just the one...

The car definately had more grunt!

[aph1101]

That's a really nice pic :D

[Michael P]

I thought that too!

[FMC]

Excellent! :D

[coysht]

Glad you enjoyed it.

I had my 1.25 Mk4 LX for 5 years and loved it.....even when the boot leaked and the battery died.

The steering was pretty much perfectly weighted unless you were doing a 3 point turn and above 3,500 revs it accelerates like a much more powerful car....surprising pasengers and other road users alike.

[Michael P]

Glad you enjoyed it.

I had my 1.25 Mk4 LX for 5 years and loved it.....even when the boot leaked and the battery died.

The steering was pretty much perfectly weighted unless you were doing a 3 point turn and above 3,500 revs it accelerates like a much more powerful car....surprising pasengers and other road users alike.

i thought this exactly, i tried it out going from 40-60...a lot quicker than i first though!!!

[spitfire123]

i thought this exactly, i tried it out going from 40-60...a lot quicker than i first though!!!

you had a go at the 0-60 times yet :P

[InstructorPiggy]

ace! great news!!

love the 1.25...nice n revvy! I bought/sold one couple months back, done 150k, but still revved its heart out!

:)

[Jonny87]

Even though I have the Mk7 now, I still miss my old Mk4, was a brilliant car. One thing I recommend is you keep an eye on the oil level - trust me on this one!

Shame you have no power steering as my car was the LX and the PAS was excellent (Infact I think it was possibly better than the PAS on the Mk7!)

It would probably benefit from a good long run, and it would be useful to see if it has any issues accrued that may need sorting

Have fun! :)

[Michael P]

Even though I have the Mk7 now, I still miss my old Mk4, was a brilliant car. One thing I recommend is you keep an eye on the oil level - trust me on this one!

Shame you have no power steering as my car was the LX and the PAS was excellent (Infact I think it was possibly better than the PAS on the Mk7!)

It would probably benefit from a good long run, and it would be useful to see if it has any issues accrued that may need sorting

Have fun! :)

right, oil will be checked! its just had a service so i presume the oil will be ok for the meanwhile!!

im not finding the lack of power steering to be too much of a ballache, i find it quite fun actually! it feels much more connected to the road, oodles of grip compared to the Kia!

it's gonna get a long run next week so that will do it some good. its nice to have my own car finally!!!

[coysht]

Shame you have no power steering as my car was the LX and the PAS was excellent (Infact I think it was possibly better than the PAS on the Mk7!)

Did your Mk4 have the 1.25 or 1.3 engine? I think they ditched the power steering on the LX when they changed the engine from 1.3 to 1.25.

They got round the lack of power steering by making the steering wheel a reasonable amount bigger to give you more torque input to the steering rack. I passed my test in a Mk5 with power steering and the wheel was tiny in comparison!

[Jonny87]

Did your Mk4 have the 1.25 or 1.3 engine? I think they ditched the power steering on the LX when they changed the engine from 1.3 to 1.25.

They got round the lack of power steering by making the steering wheel a reasonable amount bigger to give you more torque input to the steering rack. I passed my test in a Mk5 with power steering and the wheel was tiny in comparison!

I had an 'R' reg 1998 1.25 LX with power steering. From what I recall the 1.25 was offered alongside the 1.3, with the 1.3 being an 8v and the 1.25 being a 16v zetec SE engine. Was a wonderful engine, untill it started drinking the oil like it was petrol! :)

[coysht]

I had an 'R' reg 1998 1.25 LX with power steering. From what I recall the 1.25 was offered alongside the 1.3, with the 1.3 being an 8v and the 1.25 being a 16v zetec SE engine. Was a wonderful engine, untill it started drinking the oil like it was petrol! :)

Power steering must have just been an option then - I had basically the same car, just without PAS.

The 1.25 engine was the only reason I bought the car....and the reason I kept it for years!

[Michael P]

I just drove home from my friends house around 5 miles away, drove in the wet and down country lanes and the car is just so much fun to drive! I actually prefer the car without power steering and it sticks to the road really well. I've filled up the tank and am going to measure the milage a tank can do, i did 100 miles on a 1/4 of a tank so i hope i can get to 400

I absolutely love the damn thing!

[thesilverfox]

I had the 1.25 'Chicane' variant. Not sure where it fitted into the range, but it had 14/65/185 tyres (standard) and handled really well for a small car, partly due to alleged uprated suspension over standard I am informed.

It revved quite high for such a small engine, but as someone mentioned above: check oil regularly and get it changed every 6 months or so. I left mine about a year before a change once, and the level of oil was approaching 'a bit dodgy' on the low side.

I paid £3000 for it in 2003 (6yrs old, 21k miles) and parted in 2007 for £1500 (10 yrs old 50k miles). In four years of driving, the only problem was the suspension arm bushes (common issue with this marque). Replaced for peanuts.

Would always return good miles too - esp on A-roads. 45mpg + was a piece of cake on mid-longer runs.

[Michael P]

I had the 1.25 'Chicane' variant. Not sure where it fitted into the range, but it had 14/65/185 tyres (standard) and handled really well for a small car, partly due to alleged uprated suspension over standard I am informed.

It revved quite high for such a small engine, but as someone mentioned above: check oil regularly and get it changed every 6 months or so. I left mine about a year before a change once, and the level of oil was approaching 'a bit dodgy' on the low side.

I paid £3000 for it in 2003 (6yrs old, 21k miles) and parted in 2007 for £1500 (10 yrs old 50k miles). In four years of driving, the only problem was the suspension arm bushes (common issue with this marque). Replaced for peanuts.

Would always return good miles too - esp on A-roads. 45mpg + was a piece of cake on mid-longer runs.

I think the chicane was just a special edition, not too many of them knocking around.

the engine revs high, i change gear at around 3,500rpm so im not the most ecological driver in the land! i'll keep a check on the oil. we're also not too sure whether the cambelt has been changed or not, haynes manual says every 100,000 miles or every 10 years, whichever first. its done 77k and its 12 years old so im going to look into it, no record of it being changed but im going to get into contact with the previous owner to see if they changed it at all.

im hoping for good mileage out of a tank, so far so good!

[coysht]

A few things:

400 miles to a tank!?! That sounds super frugal to me!

I never ran it dry but I don't think mine would have managed more than about 350miles!

Its meant to be a 35 litre tank and I tended to be putting 300+ litres into it having done less than 300 miles. Not sure if it was supposed to have a fuel warning light, but one never came on and as a result I never pushed the fuel level too far.

Also, whats this about changing gear at 3500rpm? Thats when the variable valve timing kicks in and the real fun starts - I would be changing up at 4,500 to 5,000 when I wanted to get a move on, and that tends to keep it above 3,500 in the next gear.

On the cam belt front, I've heard a mixture of 100k and 50k intervals (interestingly I'm pretty sure the Haynes manual I still have for mine says 50k). I chickened out and had it done at about 90odd thousand as I didn't think it had been done and really didnt want it going. Cost 200 or 300 quit all in (about the same as a clutch for these engines apparently) which then just gave me an excuse to use the high revs more often!

[Michael P]

Any excuse to get the revs higher!! that news doesn't faze me at all!

well my logic of 400 miles was from doing 107 miles on 1/4 tank, i'm gonna get the tank down to as low as i dare and then see how many miles it does!

£200/£300?!?!? oh sheet, i thought it would be cheaper than that!! i'm not too keen on spending over £700 on the car in just a couple of months....that can wait!!!

[coysht]

well my logic of 400 miles was from doing 107 miles on 1/4 tank, i'm gonna get the tank down to as low as i dare and then see how many miles it does!

£200/£300?!?!? oh sheet, i thought it would be cheaper than that!! i'm not too keen on spending over £700 on the car in just a couple of months....that can wait!!!

I think you can get more out of the first 1/4 than the other three due to the filler neck if you really brim it.

Thats only what I paid to have the cam belt done, doesn't mean it can't be done cheaper, but thats what garages round here wanted.

[thesilverfox]

A few things:

400 miles to a tank!?! That sounds super frugal to me!

I never ran it dry but I don't think mine would have managed more than about 350miles!

It is a very frugal engine - when driven sensibly. Doing 44 mile round trips to work returned sometimes 50 mpg.

Also, whats this about changing gear at 3500rpm? Thats when the variable valve timing kicks in and the real fun starts - I would be changing up at 4,500 to 5,000 when I wanted to get a move on, and that tends to keep it above 3,500 in the next gear.

In a 1.25 Zetec ... VVT is certainly not an issue, because there is none, lol.

2500rpm is plenty for changing gear in the MKIV.

[Michael P]

I think you can get more out of the first 1/4 than the other three due to the filler neck if you really brim it.

Thats only what I paid to have the cam belt done, doesn't mean it can't be done cheaper, but thats what garages round here wanted.

This "1/4" was done from 3/4 full to 1/2 full (if that makes any sense!!) so it wasn't the first 1/4 of petrol in the tank :)

It is a very frugal engine - when driven sensibly. Doing 44 mile round trips to work returned sometimes 50 mpg.

This is different what what most people say, i was preparing myself for a petrol guzzler on the sly! I'm glad that it isn't though, i shall see how many days a tank will last me :)

[coysht]

It is a very frugal engine - when driven sensibly. Doing 44 mile round trips to work returned sometimes 50 mpg.

It is really quite frugal when driven right, but its a small(ish) tank.

As soon as you go above about 60mph (which was something like 4000rpm in 5th I seem to remember?) the enonomy drops back to more like 40mpg, which is very good, but only just over 300miles from a tank.

In a 1.25 Zetec ... VVT is certainly not an issue, because there is none, lol.

2500rpm is plenty for changing gear in the MKIV.

I may have missed something on the VVT front (ie it having it or not), but all the 1.25's I've driven were very pedestrian until you hit about 3 to 3,5k rpm, at which point the engine responce totally changed and it raced round to 5k pretty quickly. Sounds almost like we're talking about two totally different engines?!?

[Jonny87]

It is really quite frugal when driven right, but its a small(ish) tank.

As soon as you go above about 60mph (which was something like 4000rpm in 5th I seem to remember?) the enonomy drops back to more like 40mpg, which is very good, but only just over 300miles from a tank.

I may have missed something on the VVT front (ie it having it or not), but all the 1.25's I've driven were very pedestrian until you hit about 3 to 3,5k rpm, at which point the engine responce totally changed and it raced round to 5k pretty quickly. Sounds almost like we're talking about two totally different engines?!?

I think back in 1998 ford either didn't or had only just started using VVT. It wasn't in the Fiesta. The Puma had VVT I think in the 1.7, I could be wrong but I think this is probably true.