Hi! My son purchased his first car last year, a 2001 mk4 Fiesta 1.25 Zetec. He's loved it (as we all did with our first car!).

Unfortunately, he took it for its MOT and the Ford Garage (Peoples) basically said they dont think its safe to be on the road and gave it back to him!

In fairness to them they didnt charge for the MOT either! 

They did however give him a video which illustrates where they think needs attention.

I'm reaching out to this community to ask a couple of questions,

1. Does anyone think having this repaired would be cost effective?

2. Does anyone know anywhere they would recommend to get the work done, as I think welding is beyond my remit! (our local area is Formby, Liverpool)

Link to the video here: https://share.google/Ehx4mKF6qdALaA2vl

Any advice appreciated.

 

14 hours ago, RusSKill said:

1. Does anyone think having this repaired would be cost effective?

Not cost effective 🙁

It's time to move it on to it's final owner, it's almost 25 years old. Would you like the idea of your son driving something that has effectively been condemned ? 

8 hours ago, RusSKill said:

Hi! My son purchased his first car last year, a 2001 mk4 Fiesta 1.25 Zetec. He's loved it (as we all did with our first car!).

Unfortunately, he took it for its MOT and the Ford Garage (Peoples) basically said they dont think its safe to be on the road and gave it back to him!

In fairness to them they didnt charge for the MOT either! 

They did however give him a video which illustrates where they think needs attention.

I'm reaching out to this community to ask a couple of questions,

1. Does anyone think having this repaired would be cost effective?

2. Does anyone know anywhere they would recommend to get the work done, as I think welding is beyond my remit! (our local area is Formby, Liverpool)

Link to the video here: https://share.google/Ehx4mKF6qdALaA2vl

Any advice appreciated.

 

There's nothing wrong with that in the sense of it being unsafe them welding patches are diy there not structural positions, if that classified as proper unsafe then ( via the body ) then in my opinion it's because they want easier work. The rear lower arms n break calipers and reaer cables look like they want replacing. But not a case of it's not worth it in my own personal opinion it's a good 1 to learn with for diy repair including welding. I learnt a lot from a car that was a lot worse.

I had to remove both the sills on mine and learn to weld too

15 hours ago, RusSKill said:

Unfortunately, he took it for its MOT and the Ford Garage (Peoples) basically said they dont think its safe to be on the road and gave it back to him!

In fairness to them they didnt charge for the MOT either!

They didn't do an MOT.  That's just a free vehicle health check.

An MOT has specific failure criteria which would have proven which items were dangerous and which weren't.  For example, I can't tell exactly how close the rear rust is to the axle mount, that is what makes the difference between cosmetic and a dangerous structural fault in this case.

 

The previous MOT failed on a ton of rust, and then miraculously passed with no advisories 2 miles later.  It did take 2 weeks of work to patch up the worst areas just to get it through MOT last year.

 

With the age of this vehicle, I have to agree the repairs clearly aren't financially viable, especially at Ford dealer rates.

( With the age of this vehicle, I have to agree the repairs clearly aren't financially viable, especially at Ford dealer rates. )

That l would not disagree with, it passing in 2 miles after failing on rust that depends on the tester themselves as some like to make out the work is worser than it actually is. Why is not understandable the areas shown aren't areas so bad that is only worth scrapping though. But then that would depend on which way you want to look at it l. If it's for selling on to make a profit then those who look for perfectly looked after models and pay the best for them wouldn't touch it, if it's for self use and love of the make / model then the price isnt that bad either way diy or a pro to weld it. As a pretty decent model would cost more than the repar price if capable of diy with most of the work.

It certainly has a good looking set of tyres!

I would be cautious with the rear axle mounting points being rusty.  Beams are falling off Mk6's all over the place nowadays.  I don't know whether the Mk4's suffer the same fate.

1 hour ago, Shearers said:

It certainly has a good looking set of tyres!

Most valuable part of the car I reckon!  

Looking at the MOT history, it was off the road between 2019 and 2024, so the old tyres will have perished and needed replacement.  Looks like the previous owner hoped they could just a chuck a set of tyres on it to get back OTR, not realising how badly Fords rust underneath.

1 minute ago, TomsFocus said:

Most valuable part of the car I reckon!  

Probably the rational thing to do is sell for spares. Some parts look In decent shape.

I'm sure some of my early cars were worse than that, though back then we had a local bodyshop/welder who did a decent job for a reasonable price. 

If you could find somewhere like that locally you could at least get a reasonable estimate on which to base a decision. Ford main dealers are not going to be cost effective as already said.

 

Just a thought but I wonder if some repairers might give an indicative estimate based on the video?

Decent reasonably priced repairers do still exist. A friend of mine has used the Castleford branch of the following for many years for accident and other body repairs, but the nearest location to you is Manchester. Could be worth an ask?

https://www.northernaccidentrepair.co.uk/

 

Apologies for the delay in replying....work, holidays etc etc...

Many thanks for all the comments, We're in the process of sending the video to some local garages to get an idea of costs.

Hopefully they wont be too bad, as some of you have noticed, the rest of the car is in very good condition.

Will post with progress!!

Again, many thanks for all the responses!!