So I bought a Fiesta Zetec S with a privilege deal in October last year, I still love it. I almost went for an ST, but coming from a history of driving standard Fiestas, I didn't want to jump into an ST inexperienced and kill myself, plus the £0 tax and slightly cheaper monthly rate nailed it for me. I got the majority of optional extras too.

Dealership rang offering a possible upgrade to an ST, but as I went in, it turns out that the depreciation on the Zetec S has me in some non-trivial negative equity, meaning if I chop in my Zetec S for an ST-2, the best monthly rate I've negotiated thus far with a £750 deposit on top of the Zetec S chop-in is £280/mo with the privilege pricing. My current pricing on the Zetec S due to all the extras is £245/mo. I'm aware now that getting an ST from the start might have been smarter, even though I might have driven it into a ditch at the time.

I have a bunch of questions for anybody that can answer:

1. I'm told the ST-2 will hold better value than the Zetec S; is that true? If so, does it make financial sense to change to an ST for this reason?
2. Anybody know exactly how the finance works out when you chop in a financed car for another financed car?
3. If I don't get an ST, I'll almost certainly get a Mountune upgrade, how does this affect the value of the car, if at all?
4. If I get an ST, I might splurge on an ST-3 because of the extras. That said, I prefer my phone's satnav. Is it smarter to get the ST-2 and get all the upgrades except for the satnav? Or is it smarter to just get the ST-3 and use my phone's satnav anyway?
5. I quite like the blue instruments on the dash of my Zetec S, even though the cup holders are still oddly red. Is it possible to have an ST with blue instruments/illumination?

Thanks in advance to anybody who can answer any of these!

1. STs tend to hold their value better, but with the current STs being so popular it will still reduce that a bit. It might have made financial sense to choose the ST in the first place, but you have already got the depreciation on the Zetec S to consider now, so changing will not be for financial reasons.

Dealer will pay off the finance and in turn buy the car, then sell it themselves most likely, they make the most money this way.

Probably makes no difference. Anything more than the warranty friendly upgrades may even de-value it imo.

Depends if the ST-3's other toys are what you want and you are happy with the difference in price. You probably won't get back the difference in cost when you sell it between ST-2 and ST-3, so it needs to be because you want it.

It might be possible to fit a standard instrument cluster, but it will probably cost a fair bit and not really worth the hassle imo.

Thanks Alex, appreciate it!

The illumination in the Fiesta ST is all red, right? I saw a video somewhere where somebody was pressing a button which would change the colour, but it looked like that was a mod?

I think the A/C controls and instrument LCD are blue, and the stereo backlit white...?

But all the ambient lighting is red, the speedo and rev counter dials are red.

Then the footwells are just bulbs I think, so you can change them to whatever colour you want.