Danny87

Glad to be of assistance mate and definitely get some pictures posted up when you can. You've had some real nice cars, I'm from the younger generation so missed out on what we'd now consider as the 'classics' but boy do I wish I could have been about in those days haha. Best of luck and if you want service items I can point you to some good sellers on eBay. I replaced my spark plugs with some nice NGK's and they cost me about £6 which is good. Considering Halfords wanted over £20! Dan

Hi and welcome :) As Dez said you have a MK5, and with the 1300cc engine it's the singlepoint injected 8valve (OHV).

Agreed with Stoney it needs to go back to the dealer and you need to kick off a little bit as you wouldn't expect this on a brand new car. They've had your money the cheeky beggers, so the least they can do is sell you a product which works properly!

Don't worry about the popping as it's due to the vacuum inside the fuel tank. They are vented but there's still quite a strong vacuum as when you use the fuel in the tank air has to replace the space if that makes sense. I filled my car up again yesterday as I hadn't since I did a longish drive to Bristol visiting family, took the filler cap off and there was quite a vacuum holding it in lol. As far as the possible leak goes you may have a leak from the tube which goes down to the fuel tank, but then again if there were a fuel leak even that bad it probably wouldn't pop because the vacuum wouldn't be as bad. Best advice I can give you that side of things is to have a look underneath the car when you haven't washed it to see if you can trace any leaks. It's probably not a fuel leak as even a slight one you'd smell it probably even inside the car and definitely when it's parked up. Plus you'd notice a decrease in fuel economy but then again it depends where it's leaking from.

Hi Emma, Sorry to hear about this but let's see if we can save you some money. That seems very expensive to me for a turbo, the problem is they are rather complicated (allthough simple in the way they work) and the majority of the time just like a cylinder head a garage would send it off to be refurbished rather than do it on a bench in the workshop. You would probably be able to find a cheaper refurbished unit on eBay on a swap out basis, meaning you may get some money back if you send in your old broken one after the refurbished item has been fitted to your car. As far as the loss of power and whether the turbo is faulty, can you remember if the car was burning oil? That's one sign a turbo is knackered as oil (which is fed through to lubricate the bearings) can seep through into either the exhaust manifold or inlet manifold and get burnt off. But again oil consumptiom and burning is just one sign of a knackered turbo. As an example on the engine light with loss of power, remember modern ECUs have a 'limp home' safety feature which essentially limits the RPM of the engine should a fault be found and the engine malfunction light is lit. I recently fixed a freinds car which had the engine warning light on and loss of power and it turned out to be a sensor. Once the part was replaced then it was fine. The garage should have plugged in a fault code reader to read the fault which put the engine light on, it may have pointed them in the right direction without guessing. That way they would be able to tell you with confidence "Yes the turbo is faulty" or whatever, if that makes sense. Hope that's of some help for now, Dan

I understand where you're coming from but I think Ford know their market pretty well in the UK. Fuel is much more expensive in the EU verses America. It wouldn't be much good if Ford offered a performance car that nobody (in this country) could afford to fill up. That's why Ford offer as much 'bang for buck' as possible in terms of performance cars that people can enjoy driving and afford to fill up.

Similar thing happened to my old Punto (being a Punto I assumed the headgasket had popped lol) but just refilled and off I went. It was probably an air lock in the system somewhere, my temperature gauge went up and like you lifted the bonnet and was greeted with smoke. Was horrible as I was quite some distance from home, like Lee said cars are funny things and things like this happen sometimes. You should be okay but if it happens again check all hoses for leaks/splits and replace the thermostat as Clive suggested. :)

Ah see this always makes me sad, I know they're all rusty but at one point in time they would have been someone's pride and joy. I was in Tesco yesterday and spotted a gorgeous MK1 Escort in black. Someone had spent a lot of money and boy did it look good, it had all the fogs on the front. Really nice example and it looked completely rust free so obviously it had been kept in a garage all its life. Nice to see people who appreciate the classic cars. I didn't take a picture but if I did I'd post it up :D

That's the one lol :D When I bought the MK2 Punto I was convinced the clutch would need changing within a few thousand miles because the bite was so high, but it went on and on. I used it as a bargaining point when I bought the car because I genuinely believed it would need changing pretty soon lol. The car was really reliable which is unusual being a Punto - but when I bought my Fiesta I really learnt why it's such a popular hatchback. The drive is perfect with a nice tight gear change and responsive little revvy engine. A much better drive than the Punto was so I think when I replace my current car I'll look for a newer Fiesta because I can't fault it at all :)

Clive is right and sometimes it's totally different even on the same models. My Fiesta has a low bite, whereas both my MK1 Punto Sporting and my MK2 Punto (RIP to both) had really high biting points. It took me ages to get used to it at first because I couldn't help but pull away like I was trying to race someone with the engine screaming. I was stopped by the police one night because he thought I was trying to 'show off' when I pulled away from some lights, but this car was genuinely hard to drive smooth! You will get used to it in times, and nice choice of car and engine! The Mondeos with good engines really fly **Wishes there were a smiley with a halo**

Hi Carl and thanks for popping back to explain your symptoms in some more detail, great work :) I think we have plenty to go on and my run down of the noise goes this way... Firstly this is exactly the noise I experience from my Fiesta, lots of Fiesta and Ka owners mention similar sounds/noises from their gearbox because Ford used the same gearbox across a variety of models and for a long time. I believe the gearbox design dates back to the OHV 'Kent' engine used in the Fiesta MK1. Anyway.. I don't think the noise is related to the flywheel or clutch assembly. If it were, then the noise would change relative to the engine RPMs, NOT the gear selected (and speed). The noise is most probably the layshaft or input shaft. Depending on the gear selected, the speed of the layshaft will change according to the input shaft. It's rather complicated, but simply..(Just examples!!) 1st gear - one rotation of the input shaft is 5 rotations of the layshaft 2nd gear - one rotation of the input shaft is 4 rotations of the layshaft 3rd gear - one rotation of the input shaft is 3 rotations of the layshaft 4th gear - one rotation of the input shaft is 2 rotations of the layshaft 5th gear - one rotation of the input shaft is one rotation of the layshaft So when you're in the lower gears the layshaft is turning faster relative to the input shaft at 20mph than it would in the higher gears. So any noise from the bearings would be a lot more noticable at these speeds and in certain gears. That's what I think is going on, now you could replace the gearbox but you would probably find the noise is still there, maybe just quieter. It's honestly the design of these gearboxes, if you Google search "Ford Fiesta Gearbox Noise" you'll see what I mean, some people have spent ££££s on new clutches, flywheels and refurbished gearboxes and much to their dissapointment the noise hasn't gone. The allen key plug you've found is the top up/level plug. Park your car on level ground (very important) and remove this plug. There's a little thin washer, it should be okay to be reused once. Buy the oil which Jamie kindly listed and top up your gearbox oil, keep going until it leaks out - that's when it's at the correct level. You will probably find the noise is quieter and especially when warm you won't hear it at all, but that's down to the viscosity of the oil being slightly thinner when the gearbox heats up. I have probably made mistakes as it's been a while since I did my NVQ3 and LGV training! But the basic principle is here and nobody's perfect :D Best of luck mate!! Dan

The headlamps are meant to point down a certain amount and also slightly to the left. They check on the MOT by parking the car in front of the box thing (don't know the name lol) and adjust if need be. Sometimes you'll see French or Italian cars with orange things stuck on the headlight units and that's to help refract the light to the left as they are pointed slightly to the right for use on their roads. My old Punto was exactly like this and the right hand side dipped beam was pointed down more, whereas on my Fiesta it's not as visible. I think it depends on who's adjusted them on the MOT (if they have been adjusted). Nothing to worry about anyway, only if people are flashing you it means you're dazzling them but any MOT garage can adjust them for you if you are worried :D EDIT: Or to adjust them park up against a wall lol, but probably not the best way!

Good job! I didn't expect it to look that good without the badge tbh as I've never really liked fully debadged cars, but it suits it well and streamlines the back :)

Looks good, maybe the little wiring connector is for something that would have been an option when the car was new. Who knows, but I do like the new headlights. EDIT: Ooops forgot you'd said you've had the car since last year

Looks good to me mate and at least you've left the 'TITANIUM' badge there, I reckons keep it. Am just thinking if you took it off to see what it looks like and you are careful you can probably just stick it back on again?