First second hand advice

[Velse]

Hello everyone!

In a couple of months, maybe 3, my gf and I will be buying our first car. I am a car´s lover, so I will be doing a general check up of the car, request full history and test it, but still, I thought it would be a good idea to ask for the fiesta owner´s advice.

It would be a Fiesta Trend/ambiente 1.25, second hand with around 65-77k miles on the clock. The best deals I can find are around 6000£ which is quite cheap here in Denmark, anything below would be probably have some nasty surprise.

It was initially gonna be an Up or a Citigo second hand, but those are around 8k£ which I think is silly when I can get a Fiesta for less... isn´t it? It is a bit bigger car and overall pretty similar, so why pay more.

 

So my questions are mainly this kind:

What should I pay particular attention to when buying an over 65k miles Fiesta? Should the clutch have been replaced? Will I likely have to replace it? Is there any particular component to take care of? Now, I know this is mainly down to the previous use, but I am trying to find any well known clock issues related to Fiestas :)

 

Any input is more than welcome.

Thank you!

[isetta]

I do not know what Trend/ambiente would be. Here in England we have Studio (cheapest), Style, Zetec, Titanium.

How old would the car be?

I would not expect the clutch to have needed replacing at that mileage, as you say, down to previous use, but I would expect at least 100,000 miles. 

On the newer Fiestas the 1.25 engine is not popular in England as the newer engines are more powerful, use less fuel and have lower tax (in England we pay an annual road tax based on the pollution level of vehicle). But you might be looking at an older car than when the 1 litre turbo charged engine came in. I do not know how expensive/cheap cars might be in Denmark so can not guess what year car you are looking to buy.

The 1.25 engine, I would say, is more reliable and less temperamental than the others though.

[Velse]

Thanks for your input, Isetta.

It would most likely be a 2009 model. I see, there are probably different names for the different versions from a country to another. 

I have seen all over that Fiestas are generally quite reliable, and I decided for it also due to its popularity, that might make parts and fixes cheap.

[isetta]

It sounds like cars are quite expensive where you are.  This links show fiestas in the area of England I live in (south coast) for sale on a national car sales website (possibly the most widely used website in UK for buying/selling cars):

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?sort=price-asc&radius=25&postcode=bn18wg&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&make=FORD&model=FIESTA&year-from=2009&fuel-type=Petrol&maximum-badge-engine-size=1.4&page=2

"I have seen all over that Fiestas are generally quite reliable, and I decided for it also due to its popularity, that might make parts and fixes cheap.". I agree .  Ford Fiesta has been the best selling car in UK for many years. I have had fords for years and years due to the price and ease of availability of parts and the ease of getting info on forums such as this one and the ease of cheap ODB2 code readers with good free software for the ODB2 code readers etc.

 

[zain611]

One thing to check is if the seller said hes done work on the car to check if he has receipts to prove it. when i got my fiesta the seller said hes done the clutch etc however there was no receipts for it. thankfully though the clutch does catch properly so it may of been done not long ago but what im saying is check if theres recent service history to show what may have been done.

[Luke4efc]

I'd try and make sure the cambelt and probably water pump have been done recently at that milage.

I never got why people want Ford only stamps in the logbook. Any decent mechanic can do a service, you're more likely to have a car break down due to something that isn't serviced. This especially applies to coolant, break fluid, oil etc. If they can prove they've bought a jug of oil, the jobs been done. It's not hard to check when you buy a car anyway.

I also hate when dealers get miffed off for opening the bonnet and inspect the engine bay and then crawling round underneath. Some of us are smart enough to know they try every trick in the book to detail the enginebay and make it look like new. That's why I tend to inspect under the bonnet before and after a test drive, can check for any leaks that they might have tried to hide.

Wait what was this post about?

[Velse]

On 8/4/2017 at 6:48 PM, Luke4efc said:

I'd try and make sure the cambelt and probably water pump have been done recently at that milage.

I never got why people want Ford only stamps in the logbook. Any decent mechanic can do a service, you're more likely to have a car break down due to something that isn't serviced. This especially applies to coolant, break fluid, oil etc. If they can prove they've bought a jug of oil, the jobs been done. It's not hard to check when you buy a car anyway.

I also hate when dealers get miffed off for opening the bonnet and inspect the engine bay and then crawling round underneath. Some of us are smart enough to know they try every trick in the book to detail the enginebay and make it look like new. That's why I tend to inspect under the bonnet before and after a test drive, can check for any leaks that they might have tried to hide.

Wait what was this post about?

Haha, cheers.

 

Thanks everyone.

Luke4efc, I was already planning on going deep in as much inspection as I could, but now you encouraged me... I was thinking that it would be too much to crawl below the car but, you make a good point by checking before and after testing it for leaks! Good idea, I´m taking it.

 

[Luke4efc]

Lol this type of thing is not uncommon to see on Facebook.

I don't care what they say about me, they only want you to not look under there because you might find something wrong to give you a reason not to buy or get some money off. At the end of the day you are parting with however many thousands, you want to make sure you're getting something that's not going to fail.

If you're stuck on what to inspect, I remember seeing a video a while back on YouTube. He went through pretty much everything to look at. Here's the playlist, it goes through everything from inspection, to research, test drive, and buying the car. It mostly applies to private sales. You couldn't really haggle a salesman like that, but you get the idea. 

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvKbarVtwhUv6bjLhJSyaEOxaYy03j7QS

[Velse]

Hey, so to close this threat, we ended up getting a Fiesta yesterday!

I want to thank you all for your tips, I gave it a good inspection.. fortunately we got lucky, we found a 1.2 with just 100k kilometers on the clock and, more important, full history. Even thought it was meant to happen in a couple of months, this fella was fully equipped so I couldn´t lose the chance.

Only one user before and she genuinely toke care of the car.. not a single scratch!

 

So once again thank you!

[Bobr]

I had a 2009 1.4 Titanium and it was a really nice little car.

[jace1969]

I have the 1.6 Titanium  2011 and love it,had it 3 years and engine is clean and smooth and not 1 issue at all.