Who here owns a Fiesta ST?

My air con was poor too but I regassed it. If I recall correctly there was an issue highlighted on the owners club forum (and in Australia, where one can buy the st as the Fiesta XR4 and where they really need good air con!) where as standard there is never quite enough gas in the system, and the system capacity is labelled incorrectly by the 'top up' port (beneath the drivers side headlight).

Not enough gas means the compressor constantly cycles on and off at low engine revs, as often as every 1 to 1.5 minute or so (some say as often as every 45 seconds), with an annoying click and fluctuation in engine revs as it happens, not to mention it won't be as cool as one would like. You can test this, get the car warm then park up and let it idle, then put the air con on max chill with the blowers on, and wait to hear how often the compressor cycles off and on. If its low it will cycle off and on a lot and it gets annoying in stop/start traffic. Overfill it, slightly above the recommended pressure at idle, and it doesn't cycle so often and is also a lot cooler!

I manually topped up my air con over a year ago, back when selling equipment to do so was legal, to slightly over the recommended pressure, and it has been nice and chilly ever since. It is a fairly well documented issue on fiestastoc.com.
 
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But what do you do when on a long drive on a warm day? I hate having the windows down as I like my music fairly loud and don't want it blasting to everyone in the area, plus the wind noise is horrible!
 
Will said:
I manually topped up my air con over a year ago, back when selling equipment to do so was legal, to slightly over the recommended pressure, and it has been nice and chilly ever since. It is a fairly well documented issue on fiestastoc.com.
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I just done mine, and a friends, works great. Never clicks off now, always cold, very fast at working etc.
 
Guess who has a broken ST 150 miles from home? :(

On the drive to southampton today I found the car was stuck in gear, and the clutch pedal went soft. This happened on the A34 and was sufficiently bad I had to pull over, as I eventually got the car out of fifth but then couldn't select anything else so ended up coasting. It seems intermittent - sometimes I can change gear, sometimes it gets stuck in gear, othertimes it will not let me pick anything but neutral. The clutch pedal, normally hard thanks to the paddle clutch, now feels very loose indeed.

Suggests to me a possible slave cylinder failure, or (hopefully) the clutch pedal circlip issue that afflicted 2006 cars. A cheap and ten minute fix if so, but then again once upon a time Ford told me my car had the recall to do this, admittedly it was a slightly confused sounding receptionist who told me as such...

If it is the slave and/or clutch that's gone I'll need to speak to jamsport since they fitted a new slave cylinder and Helix clutch when they did my diff. Small matter of getting a car to northampton from southampton though...then getting myself back to wolves!

Tomorrow morning I'm off to hendy Ford in southampton, not how I planned to spend my weekend! Gutted.
 
I went to Tremona garage in southampton this morning, they suspect slave cylinder is on its way out, or a problem with the clutch. Have tried to nurse it home seeing as most of the journey is in fifth gear and very much a cruise, and the car is fine to drive in gear. Had to give up though, now stranded near birdlip on the a417. I am unable to put the car in gear with the engine on, seems a hydraulic issue. I had to slow down and the car would have stalled in fifth, so I tried to change down and I couldnt get any gear at all, so coasted to a stop in neutral. Brittania rescue coming to take me home!
 
Bad news Will :(

Did you say that your car has had the recall work done with that circlip or not, couldn't quite make out from your post?

Not even sure if mine has had this work done, might give Ford a call just to be 100%.

It may have nothing to do with JS but on a personal level I won't go near JamSport again but thats just me.

On a seperate note, car is now on the coilovers and wow, what a difference. Adjusted the height today as it was slightly too low before, went around and checked everything was torqued up and went for a quick B road blast, car handles so nicely and inspires much more confidence over the B12 kit. The damper settings need to be tweaked but overall I'm really happy with the car now.
 
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Just had my car recovered to a garage near me, needed a low loader in the end, lost the ability to get anything but neutral. My car has had the pedal circlip mod done, was the first thing I checked

What makes you feel that way about jamsport?

I have spoken to Jamie at jamsport already, he said the clutch would just need bleeding but I think its a bit more than that personally, as did the two recovery guys and the two people I spoke to at Tremona garage. Jamie said a car with a tubular manifold can overheat the clutch fluid and cause this problem, but its not an issue that's ever been mentioned on any forums I've read.
 
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Just some of the stories I've heard and my personal experiances, etc. It seems as though it's the usual, unless you spend thousands there then they put 50% into the work.

First time I went there to get an exhaust fitted, they basically said the car would be rubbish without a custom re-map so had one fitted. Jamie finished working on the car about 7ish and then took it for a test drive, ragged it up the road cold and then came back about 2 mins later.

I heard a "flap flap flap" sound as he came back down the road which I knew straight away was a flat tyre, yet the first thing he said when he jumped out was "what coilovers you got on there? Gaz? They are *****" and walked into the garage.. I then pointed out that in actual fact the car had a flat tyre which was caused by a chunk missing out of the side of the tyre wall and a small chunk missing out of the wheel and he just giggled and said "Really? That might be it then.." I'm no expert but I was pretty ****ed off that he of all people should know how dodgy the road is.

If you've ever been to JamSport you'll know just how awful the road is leading to the garage, you literally have to drive about 10mph to avoid the hundereds of pot holes yet he just raged it, obviously hit a deep one which caught the side wall and hey presto, I'm stuck in Northampton with a 1 hour drive and the either have the option of putting the spare wheel on and paying for the tyre myself or leaving it with them.

Left it with them, a week later I called, they hadn't sorted it yet so I ordered a tyre from black circles and had it delivered there. 3 days later they had swapped the tyre and I had to meet Pete, one of the chaps who works there who is actually a pretty nice chap tbh, half way to Northampton to swap it over (they lent me a wheel to use in the mean time).

When I got the charger removed I had the option of going to JamSport or taking it to Pumabuild, went with Pumabuild in the end as at least I know Alan and knew he would actually get everything back to stock in a neat fashion.
 
I dealt with Matt when my car was with them, nice guy I thought. Seemed a hell of a lot of cars in that day and something of a rush to get every job finished...was nearly 7pm when I left the place. They sure put the hours in there!

I'm going to reserve comment on anything else about jamsport until I see what's what with the gearbox...hoping the garage I use will be able to have a look at it on Monday. I suspect master cylinder or a problem with the clutch (bent fingers or a snapped spring on it or something).

Do you know Alan personally or just through taking your car there? I have heard mixed things about pumabuild....then again that seems true of all the popular ST 'tuners' except for mountune and perhaps AMD.
 
Anyone had their rear windows tinted?
I'm after getting all three rear windows tinted black but not sure who to use to get a good job done. i know i want it perfect, any slight mark and i just won't be happy with it.
anyone got any recomendation of who can do it?
also, I'm hoping to get black tints (as the car is black) but is it too dark for the rear window? or still ok to see out of.
 
metamorphpwner said:
Anyone had their rear windows tinted?
I'm after getting all three rear windows tinted black but not sure who to use to get a good job done. i know i want it perfect, any slight mark and i just won't be happy with it.
anyone got any recomendation of who can do it?
also, I'm hoping to get black tints (as the car is black) but is it too dark for the rear window? or still ok to see out of.
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The back windows on the STs that have the tech-pack are pretty black (although I've not really got much experience with tinted windows, so I've no idea how dark the actually are) and are fine to see out of. It's noticeably dark the first few times you look out of them (mainly in the mirror) but you get used to it very quick and can see out of them fine.
 
metamorphpwner said:
Anyone had their rear windows tinted?
I'm after getting all three rear windows tinted black but not sure who to use to get a good job done. i know i want it perfect, any slight mark and i just won't be happy with it.
anyone got any recomendation of who can do it?
also, I'm hoping to get black tints (as the car is black) but is it too dark for the rear window? or still ok to see out of.
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I had mine done by Pentagon Auto Tints in Heywood and they are exceptionally good. Not the cheapest by any stretch but I am 100% happy with them. I had the 80% tint (20% of light gets through) and I think it is just right. Light still gets through but it's difficult to see in to the extent that I don't mind leaving the odd thing in the back.

DAnDan said:
The back windows on the STs that have the tech-pack are pretty black (although I've not really got much experience with tinted windows, so I've no idea how dark the actually are) and are fine to see out of. It's noticeably dark the first few times you look out of them (mainly in the mirror) but you get used to it very quick and can see out of them fine.
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Is it the tech-pack or is there a ford pack called "privacy pack". Not picking at your knowledge, general question as I know nothing about the different ford packs but hear a lot of names floating around. :cool:
 
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