Mk4/5 Fiestas

Evening all,

Girlfriend looking at one of these for her first car. Budget around £1000-1250, as insurance and the probable service (and perhaps cambelt) are going to be needed.

Firstly, is the Mk4/5 Fiesta a good idea? Or would you recommend something else? She wants something fairly small (i.e. not a Mondeo!), and like most first cars, should be cheap to insure and run, and be reliable.

We looked at Kas but it seems they suffer extremely badly from rust, so probably not a good idea.

Secondly, if so, which engine - the 1.25 or the 1.3? I believe the 1.3 is chain driven cam, is this is as big an advantage as it sounds?

Thanks

The 1.25 is an excellent engine - economical and 'nippy' or whatever it is people call small engines that dont totally suck.

The 1.3 is older than the hills, is rough, noisey and unrefined. It's also slow and thirsty.

GeForce said:

Secondly, if so, which engine - the 1.25 or the 1.3? I believe the 1.3 is chain driven cam, is this is as big an advantage as it sounds?

Click to expand...

No, because the 1.3 OHV engine is a horrible old boat anchor whereas the 1.25 is a revvy little thing that performs quite well.

Unless absolute minimal running cost is the key I plead you to try the 1.25 back to back with the 1.3.

EDIT What [TW]Fox said.

Great cars, 1.25

Should be cheap for her to insure too, if she is 18-25 years old and doesn't mind the tracker boxes etc, go with co-op i get £186 back every 3 months off my premium payed straight back into my account.

Sadly the vast majority of Mk5 Fiesta's on the market are rusty sheds these days. They're actually pretty good cars with the 1.25 or 1.4 engine, but finding a decent one will be a challenge. I had a hunt for several weeks and found one 2002 car in really good nick, but it sold before I had chance to look at it as it was some distance away. I needed a 5 door though, if a 3 door is acceptable you will have a good deal more choice.

Cambelts are 100k/10 years on these, and almost all are over 10 years old so should have had it done.

Usually I'd say buy on condition rather than mileage at this money, but you do need to watch the 1.25's as the mileage gets over 80-90k as they tend to burn oil due to wear on the oil rings. This is not economical to repair.

Check for rust everywhere, but particularly on the rear arches, bottom of the tailgate, around the filler cap, where the rear arch meets the sill (this can be an MOT failure as it's close the rear suspension mounts), along the sills, front arches and on the A pillars inside the front doors - there's a water trap here and they can be quite bad. One car I saw the exterior body wasn't too shabby, but the A pillars were a real mess. Other checks are make sure the rear suspension isn't clonking over bumps - usually rear axle bushes which can be difficult to change - the one I had needed them and I was advised to get a good axle from a scrapper rather than change the bushes.

I think there's 2 routes you can go with these - if you've got time, hunt down a minter for £1200, otherwise try to find something reasonably tidy, but accept a bit of cosmetic rust for around £7-£800 and be prepared to bin it if it fails it's MOT next year. You'll get £200 for scrap. I would not touch one of these without 12 months MOT.

The third way, and what I ended up doing, is spending a bit more and getting a Mk6. You can pick up decent ones under £2000, but they sell very quickly. They are galvanised so rust is not an issue. The Mk5 chassis harks back to the Mk3 launched in the late 80's, the Mk6 was designed 20 years later and clearly the game had moved on. It's a much more refined car.

Yeah avoid the Mk4/5's and get a Mk6, far better car, also very little seems to ever go wrong with them. They like to break front springs, thats about it though.

The vast majority of Mk4 and Mk5 are now rusting away. For £1k I don't think there is a better small car than a 1.25 Mk5 Fiesta but you're going to have to really hunt out a rot-free example.

Has anybody ever done a DIY clutch and cambelt change on one? Would you recommend against it for any reason or is it an OK job?

[TW]Fox;21841596 said:

The 1.25 is an excellent engine - economical and 'nippy' or whatever it is people call small engines that dont totally suck.

The 1.3 is older than the hills, is rough, noisey and unrefined. It's also slow and thirsty.

Click to expand...

I thought that might well be the case, I'll try and tend to the 1.25 engine then.

Aeleys said:

Should be cheap for her to insure too, if she is 18-25 years old and doesn't mind the tracker boxes etc, go with co-op i get £186 back every 3 months off my premium payed straight back into my account.

Click to expand...

She's 21, so yes that should indeed be the case. I'd not even considered the telematic insurance, do you mind me asking how much this saves you? And how much is your yearly premium?

blueboy2001 said:

I needed a 5 door though, if a 3 door is acceptable you will have a good deal more choice.

Cambelts are 100k/10 years on these, and almost all are over 10 years old so should have had it done.

Usually I'd say buy on condition rather than mileage at this money, but you do need to watch the 1.25's as the mileage gets over 80-90k as they tend to burn oil due to wear on the oil rings. This is not economical to repair.

Check for rust everywhere, but particularly on the rear arches, bottom of the tailgate, around the filler cap, where the rear arch meets the sill (this can be an MOT failure as it's close the rear suspension mounts), along the sills, front arches and on the A pillars inside the front doors - there's a water trap here and they can be quite bad. One car I saw the exterior body wasn't too shabby, but the A pillars were a real mess. Other checks are make sure the rear suspension isn't clonking over bumps - usually rear axle bushes which can be difficult to change - the one I had needed them and I was advised to get a good axle from a scrapper rather than change the bushes.

I think there's 2 routes you can go with these - if you've got time, hunt down a minter for £1200, otherwise try to find something reasonably tidy, but accept a bit of cosmetic rust for around £7-£800 and be prepared to bin it if it fails it's MOT next year. You'll get £200 for scrap. I would not touch one of these without 12 months MOT.

The third way, and what I ended up doing, is spending a bit more and getting a Mk6. You can pick up decent ones under £2000, but they sell very quickly. They are galvanised so rust is not an issue. The Mk5 chassis harks back to the Mk3 launched in the late 80's, the Mk6 was designed 20 years later and clearly the game had moved on. It's a much more refined car.

Click to expand...

She doesn't mind a 3-door, which does give us a bit more choice. Time is also something we have luckily, so I think perhaps we will try and hold out for a good condition 3-door around the £1200 mark. As you said, I'll be expecting it to come with a good amount of tax & test If it's burning oil, should I just be checking for blue smoke, or any other telltale signs?

However as people have said, I'll have a look into the Mk6. I'm not sure if £2000 will be out of budget for her, but the benefits do sound good, especially the galvanised chassis.

How much are we talking for a cambelt change on these things (let's assume the 1.25, if that makes any difference)?

The other question is, is it particularly worth looking for the facelift (Mk5) over the Mk4? The cosmetic stuff doesn't bother me, but are there other more subtle things that make the Mk5 significantly better?

Thanks everyone for your help, very much appreciated!

The Mk4 is even older so likely to be worse in the rust department. Doesn't mean a few good ones exist though.

Been looking at Mk6s, there seem to be a good few around the £2k mark. What should I be looking out for on these?

Are the 1.25 and 1.4 engines the same as the ones in the Mk4/5 fiestas?

The Mk6 are generally very reliable. Front coil springs can snap, but that's probably more down to the state of the roads than an inherent weakness. £150 should see the pair swapped at a garage if required.

Bodyshells are galvanised so rust should not be an issue. I'd walk away from anything more significant than a rusty stonechip because it's potentially a sign of a bodged accident repair.

The 1.25 and 1.4 engines are broadly the same mechanically, but the engine electronics are updated and they should be a bit more economical. Note most early Mk6 will be 1.4 - the 1.25 was not available at launch. The 1.25 is 75PS, the 1.4 is 80PS - but the 1.4 has more torque and produces it's power a bit lower down so doesn't need working quite so hard.

It's just the usual checks with these - make sure the engine runs cleanly throughout the rev range. A misfire is probably a sign the car needs new plugs, leads and coil pack, and there is a design fault on these that allows water to enter to the spark plug recesses. The fix is to replace the washer jets or seal underneath with silicone sealant. If it's not excessive, the heat of the engine will remove the water with no issues. I put a bit of silicone grease on the ends of the leads to keep the water out. Make sure it stops in a straight line. Check the body for any damage or signs of poor repair. Make sure all the electrical items and aircon works if fitted.

I picked up a 2003 Mk6 1.4 Zetec with 55k on the clock for my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago for £1550 (which is cheap, but I knew the owner, it only had 2 weeks tax left and the MOT is up at the end of May). I gave it a full service and thorough check over today. The front discs and pads were, as far as I could tell, original. The pads had about 25% left and the discs had a slight lip so I changed them for Pagid parts which cost about £55. 5L of oil and a genuine filter cost £27 from the dealer, and the air/fuel/pollen filters and a set of spark plugs was about £25. They are cheap to buy parts for and easy to work on. I couldn't find anything wrong with it, so hopefully it'll sail through it's MOT.

It will need a timing belt next year which I'll get a garage to do - that'll be about £200.

Brilliant stuff, thanks very much, really good advice

My 406 also suffered from the front coils snapping, both went during low speed manoeuvres (as is typical), is that the same on the Fiesta?

I've got a Fiesta 1.25 MK6 currently, had it two and a half years and put over 22k miles on it so far. I've experienced the front coil springs going (thankfully the car was on the drive when it happened so didn't damage the tyres), but that's been the only trouble I've had with it. Great little cars.

Averaged 45.1 MPG over the last 10k miles or so, although I probably do more motorway miles than average.

If you want to know anything else let me know.

GeForce said:

She's 21, so yes that should indeed be the case. I'd not even considered the telematic insurance, do you mind me asking how much this saves you? And how much is your yearly premium?

Click to expand...

My premium was around 1.8k for the year , but as i said you get money back every 3 months until it's down to whatever is the "normal"

And that was on a 2001 MK4 1.25 Zetec.

i really should get around to putting pictures up lol.

Fusion said:

I've got a Fiesta 1.25 MK6 currently, had it two and a half years and put over 22k miles on it so far. I've experienced the front coil springs going (thankfully the car was on the drive when it happened so didn't damage the tyres), but that's been the only trouble I've had with it. Great little cars.

Averaged 45.1 MPG over the last 10k miles or so, although I probably do more motorway miles than average.

Click to expand...

Thanks for this Would you recommend having the front coils done if they haven't already been changed then? 45mpg is excellent, far better than I was expecting from a 1.25 engine.

Thanks for the insurance info Aeleys, much appreciated

My sister has a very clean mk5 1.25 Wreg fiesta - great handling and zippy engine - a right hoot round twisties.

[TW]Fox;21841596 said:

The 1.25 is an excellent engine - economical and 'nippy' or whatever it is people call small engines that dont totally suck.

The 1.3 is older than the hills, is rough, noisey and unrefined. It's also slow and thirsty.

Click to expand...

bang on. 1.25 is a great engine. The 1.3 engine is a very old design, and best avoided.

Very cheap cars to run.

GeForce said:

Thanks for this Would you recommend having the front coils done if they haven't already been changed then? 45mpg is excellent, far better than I was expecting from a 1.25 engine.

Click to expand...

I couldn't tell you what the incidence of coil spring failure is as a percentage of cars out there. It does seem to be a Fiesta-specific problem but I don't think its endemic. I wouldn't fork out to have them changed if there isn't a problem personally, though some may disagree.

Yeah it is a very economical engine. I get around 50MPG on a decent motorway trip at 70/75 MPH indicated.

For the money and class it competes in it's probably the best vehicle out there as an all arounder.

blueboy2001, that's the first I've heard about heavier oil use- how much is that problem to fix?

I've got a 1.25 Mk5 (Y reg) Ghia, mine only has 48k currently so relatively low miles. Couple of rust spots here and there but they will be sorted in due course. The previous old lady owner had the worst POS tyres put on the front (no grip whatsoever) but still a chuck-able car.

For running costs, I do nothing but town driving, have the AC on all the time, still get just over 40mpg average. Couldn't really ask for lower running costs.

I have a 1.3 mk5, it's not bad with rust and I average about 37mpg while driving it pretty heavily. It is terribly slow though, so I'd recommend a different engine if you intend on getting a mk5