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Newbie Driver With Several Questions


TAUNUS86
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Hello Fiesta troops!

New member here,my name is Michael,glad to found you!

I'm preparing myself to buy the MK7 Fiesta 1.6 sport 2009 model.

This will be my first car so i'm a bit anxious to be honest..

My biggest concern is the clutch.How's the pedal feel?(light-hard?)

Is the bitting point low or high?

The car at the driving school (VW Polo) had a light clutch with a low bitting point and it worked out pretty well for me.

But afterwards,when i drove my uncle's car (320 BMW) i was pretty dissapointed..Hard pedal,high bitting point,the hill starts were a complete nightmare...

So in general,is the Fiesta a good and easy car for a noob like me to start driving?

Thanks in advance guys

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Hello Fiesta troops!

New member here,my name is Michael,glad to found you!

I'm preparing myself to buy the MK7 Fiesta 1.6 sport 2009 model.

This will be my first car so i'm a bit anxious to be honest..

My biggest concern is the clutch.How's the pedal feel?(light-hard?)

Is the bitting point low or high?

The car at the driving school (VW Polo) had a light clutch with a low bitting point and it worked out pretty well for me.

But afterwards,when i drove my uncle's car (320 BMW) i was pretty dissapointed..Hard pedal,high bitting point,the hill starts were a complete nightmare...

So in general,is the Fiesta a good and easy car for a noob like me to start driving?

Thanks in advance guys

welcome to the forum Michael,

Glad you aint bought a polo anyways. They dont make em like they used to,

I dont drive a fiesta so cant comment but a 1.6 fiesta for first time insurance will be around 2,300 euro for the first year,

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Have you test driven the car your looking for? Thats the only way you'll find out

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Good advice take a test drive. The Fiesta is used by many driving schools and should be a good and affordable first car. Enjoy

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Could drive 2 of the same model and find one or both has a dead clutch and stretched cable. Avoid clios, they have the heaviest clutches and stupidly high bites, although it's a good workout for the quads.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Ford OC mobile app

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Thanks for the replies guys.

I'll take the car for a test drive(although something like that makes me nervous because i have to be extremely carefull as the car won't be mine at that point).

I just made my questions to know in general how the clutches are on this Fiesta.

So any further replies will be extremely helpful :) .

@Matt:A friend of mine who owned 2 clios in the past told me the same thing about their cluches.''Heavy with high bite point'' :unsure:

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speaking from experiance from driving my mum's fiesta i would say the bite point is failry low (compared to my focus) and the cluch pedal feels light (again compared to my focus). Things might off changed though as my mums is a 1.4 2012 (dont know if ford change things like that mid production), can't imagine, but you never know. :)

as for being nervous when test driving dont worry, just drive like you usually do, doubtful the person sitting with you (dealer/seller) will be paying that much attention, or if you go to some small garages, as well as some big dealers they just hand you the keys and say it got about 50 miles of petrol, dont run out, although i think this is very much dependant on area and dealer. :D

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When I was having my BMW repaired once , I jumped into a Fiesta and the steering and clutch was ridiculously light, so your worrying over nothing.

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Realistically the lightness and biting point of a clutch will vary car to car a lot. I've driven two cars back to back both fiestas and one had a really heavy clutch that bit low. But one had a light clutch that bit high. They're all hydraulic clutches so if it bites high the clutch will be worn. So low is good.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using Ford OC mobile app

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  • 1 month later...

When I was having my BMW repaired once , I jumped into a Fiesta and the steering and clutch was ridiculously light, so your worrying over nothing.

My stepson just bought a BMW i thought the power steering had gone,has it felt so heavy..

Sent from my iPhone using Ford OC

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Realistically the lightness and biting point of a clutch will vary car to car a lot. I've driven two cars back to back both fiestas and one had a really heavy clutch that bit low. But one had a light clutch that bit high. They're all hydraulic clutches so if it bites high the clutch will be worn. So low is good.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using Ford OC mobile app

I drove a Kia Cee'd estate last week for a day while my St estate was having a service and the clutch has a very low biting point.

Just lift your foot an inch and bam!

Hated it.

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I was in a similar situation, I took up driving in a land which drives on the wrong side of the road after a gap of many years and decided to take some driving lessons too and you guessed it I did those lessons in a Polo. I was also nervous about a test drive so took a friend with me for some extra advice on cars and the Fiesta in particular. He is a bit of a car fanatic so I trusted his view. He also likes to push the cars a bit which can be fun, I on the other hand was quite cautious.

At first I found the clutch in the Fiesta and overall gear changing rougher than the Polo. Also in my new Fiesta I found changing into third gear to be a pain in the !Removed! although that problem now seems to have passed. In general the various cars I tried were all a bit different and had their own special ways but you get used to them rather quickly, even if you are a relatively inexperienced driver. In particular the Punto had very lumpy gears. Now I find the Fiesta great fun drive and the clutch is perfectly friendly and the gears smooth - third seems to be behaving itself...

The Fiesta is a perfect noobs (or semi-noobs like me) car. It is fun and easy to drive. You feel connected to the road and get the steering is precise and in my view better than on the Polo.

Just cut yourself a little slack and it will all be fine.

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I've driven 2 fiestas and found the clutch to be very light and a low bite point in both, although my fiesta now does have a higher bite than the style+ previously had I still think its a great first (and second in my case) car to start in! Drives light a dream and cheap for newbies insurance!

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Thanks for the replies guys.

I'll take the car for a test drive(although something like that makes me nervous because i have to be extremely carefull as the car won't be mine at that point).

I just made my questions to know in general how the clutches are on this Fiesta.

So any further replies will be extremely helpful :) .

@Matt:A friend of mine who owned 2 clios in the past told me the same thing about their cluches.''Heavy with high bite point'' :unsure:

To be honest, if you test drive the car...doubt you'll be the first, and certainly not the last to rag its pants off!! Drive it as you would expect to drive your own car (although...clouds of tyre smoke and screeching probably won't go down so well - so leave out the donuts and hand brake turns :P)

Last (and only) Fiesta I drove was quite light and had a nice biting point - not too high that you're kneeing yourself in the face and not so low you need to be Fred Flintstone.

Besides, within a few weeks of driving it'll just feel "normal" :-)

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Hello Fiesta troops!

New member here,my name is Michael,glad to found you!

I'm preparing myself to buy the MK7 Fiesta 1.6 sport 2009 model.

This will be my first car so i'm a bit anxious to be honest..

My biggest concern is the clutch.How's the pedal feel?(light-hard?)

Is the bitting point low or high?

The car at the driving school (VW Polo) had a light clutch with a low bitting point and it worked out pretty well for me.

But afterwards,when i drove my uncle's car (320 BMW) i was pretty dissapointed..Hard pedal,high bitting point,the hill starts were a complete nightmare...

So in general,is the Fiesta a good and easy car for a noob like me to start driving?

Thanks in advance guys

My first car was a bmw mini, great car good fun just a little slow. The bite point on that was quite high got used to it after a while though.

I then got a fiesta s1600 which is based on the Zetec s. The pedals are a lot lower, which was weird to start with but I actually prefer it to the mini. The bite point is also lower which is a lot better and easier to get used to.

So you will be fine with the fiesta!

Like what's said above give it a test drive and see what you think and take it from there.

Good luck!

Sent from my iPhone using Ford OC

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  • 7 months later...

Many thanks for your help guys!

After all these months saving money (i delayed the purchase a little as some family priorities occured) i'll finaly get a MK7 2009 Fiesta next week!

My last question to you.

When i passed my exam driving the polo,the clutch pedal had a tiny bit of resistance against the natural upward movement when you reach the bitting point.That helped me a lot finding the bite and get smooth starts without stalling.

Is this ''resistance feel'' a standard on every car's clutch pedal (including the fiesta of course) or it differs from car to car?

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"Feeling the bite" is different in pretty much every car. Give it a tiny bit of revs.. Lift off slow, when you feel the car pull - that's the bite.

Within a day driving it you'll get it down.

Test driving cars for the first time...you'll always kangaroo it at first. And end up nearly going through the windscreen when you put your foot on the brake. Car salesmen are used to this. Haha.

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC

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Just practice getting the bite before doing any hill starts.

If someone gets it wrong it's rather scary for anyone behind (and brown trousers for you and any passengers) ;)

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Thanks for the replies guys.

Basically i'm not asking how to find the bite (i know the usual way that paulyinthenorth describes above).

I'm asking about that tiny resistance feel when you reach the bitting point as you lift the pedal.

It may sound a bit silly but it really helped me locating the bite much easier and hold my foot steady at this point.

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There isn't really any warning, it's just something you 'sort of learn'.

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The '' feel '' of the clutch pedal comes with experience - you'll get there - as we all did :)

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