Cars of Crackers: Fiesta Fixing

[twosmoke300]

4 minutes ago, Matty said:

This is going to be hard then cos I have 3 cars and no turbos. As @twosmoke300 will tell you they ain't no ball of fire. Not a problem to me as I've always owned cars of this era. The best I can do is a healthy one should drive like old school hot hatches always did. Big fat torque curve exaggerated by low weight. Mine will pull 5th gear up a hill at just under 30. Plant your foot and it just pulls from there with no down shifts. Duratecs a shit valver mind. By 5000 rpm it's all just noise and smell. Best to give up by about 4 and a half and drive it on the torque. Glad you're enjoying it. This is my first Ford so I'm not an evangelist. The car just represents what we won't have again. Good cheap fun. That's why I love it.

Mine is growing on me . I bimble round like an old man in it but it’s got so much torque it kinda suits that . 

[Matty]

2 minutes ago, twosmoke300 said:

Mine is growing on me . I bimble round like an old man in it but it’s got so much torque it kinda suits that . 

We are bloody old men. I was 44 2 week back. Always 18 in my head though 🤣

[twosmoke300]

Just now, Matty said:

We are bloody old men. I was 44 2 week back. Always 18 in my head though 🤣

I’m 46 in June ! Saw a guy that must have been at least 70 in one this week 

[Crackers]

Cheers @Matty yeah it seems to pull happily from low down, but doesn't exactly reel in the horizon. I've got a colleague with a lower miles one, I'm hoping he'll let me give it a go to compare. Another colleague felt the same way about it, but he drives a ZS180 which is a properly meaty engine so his view on torque is a bit skewed as well. 

[mat_the_cat]

3 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

I’m 46 in June !

Youngster! I turned 46 last week 😪

[Crackers]

Few more items ticked off tonight thanks to a very helpful work mate. 

Front lower arms replaced, gearbox oil changed and gear selector cables re-greased. 

Couple of hours well spent and with a tangible improvement to how the car drives.

Cost: £123 incl. Postage for 2x complete arms/bushes/ball joints and 3L of gearbox oil. 

Total spend so far:

Car purchase £1650

Tyres £187

Parts £220

Total £2057.

I think another £100-150 should round out the spending so I should be in it for about £2200 all-in. Quite pleasing. 

[Marshall2810]

Always liked these and fancied one although the relatively high tax for what is it has put me off so far. They seem to be getting very affordable

[Crackers]

4 minutes ago, Marshall2810 said:

Always liked these and fancied one although the relatively high tax for what is it has put me off so far. They seem to be getting very affordable

This one might be for sale sometime this year if you're interested. The tax is a little high but bearable - no worse than an MX5 of similar age etc and offset by the simplicity of the car being cheap to run and repair. 

[AnthonyG]

Dare I ask what’s happening with the XF? 

Mine is currently immobile (first time in my ownership of nearly 12 years tbf) as the rotary gear selector knob decided to part company with the rest of the mechanism. I managed to get it into drive to get it home on Saturday but have not risked it since. Annoyingly this is a genuine JLR replacement part fitted 7 months ago, when the original packed up - although that time I was still able to select the gears by pressing down on it hard. I do wonder if the plastic degraded in store or something- I mean I doubt it was made last year even if that’s when it got fitted. 

Starting to really hate these rotary knobs now, I remember @Six-cylinder was very suspicious of such new fangled nonsense in his Range Rover…can see why now. 

[Marshall2810]

38 minutes ago, Crackers said:

This one might be for sale sometime this year if you're interested. The tax is a little high but bearable - no worse than an MX5 of similar age etc and offset by the simplicity of the car being cheap to run and repair. 

I'm a similar age and yeah I had and liked them when they were "new". I managed to find a blue one with 24k on locally and it always managed to make me smile driving it. At higher mileage these engines seem to stand up pretty well.

May be tempted if stars align, so I'll look out for it if and when  

[AndyIggs]

I've only got a 2006 Zetec S but even the STs aren't the fastest things. Definitely make up for it round the bends though!

[Crackers]

44 minutes ago, AnthonyG said:

Dare I ask what’s happening with the XF? 

It's at another garage, being looked at between jobs, on the back burner somewhat. To be honest the longer it's out of my sight, the less I have to think about it. 

Sorry to hear about yours and hope it's sorted soon enough - plenty of gear selectors on ebay and it's not an awful job to fit them, but I can't remember if they need coding or not. I assume you know where the gearbox park release is if you need to move the car?

[AnthonyG]

22 hours ago, Crackers said:

It's at another garage, being looked at between jobs, on the back burner somewhat. To be honest the longer it's out of my sight, the less I have to think about it. 

Sorry to hear about yours and hope it's sorted soon enough - plenty of gear selectors on ebay and it's not an awful job to fit them, but I can't remember if they need coding or not. I assume you know where the gearbox park release is if you need to move the car?

Mine is booked into garage for next week, I’ve taken Friday off work to either nurse it to the garage (literally about a mile away) or if worse comes to worse get the AA to recover it as I have Home Start.

When I moved it last Saturday I could get it to go between Park, Reverse and Neutral relatively easily but there seems to be some sort of detent (or rather the electronic equivalent) for Drive which is much much harder to select.

I didn’t know about the gearbox park release, is this a physical thing on the box itself or part of the rotator mechanism (which looks to be a totally sealed unit)? 

It’s going back to the garage who fitted the genuine new part last June with discussions about how to get that part exchanged/replaced/refunded, only if that gets nowhere will I think about a secondhand unit - I’m not spending another £700 on a new part if it’s not even guaranteed for a year! They do need coding but that is very much an incidental cost to the part itself.

I will be getting the garage, who have always been straight and fair with me in the 6 or so years I’ve used them, to source the s/h part if required as, if it doesn’t work when they fit it, they sort it out with the supplier.  Me getting one off EBay runs the risk of me having to sort sending back a duff one etc, and I just don’t have the time or stress tolerance for that faff. It also just adds time delays I can live without.

Sorry to turn your Fiesta thread into a long-winded Jag moan 🙂!

[Crackers]

1 hour ago, AnthonyG said:

I didn’t know about the gearbox park release, is this a physical thing on the box itself or part of the rotator mechanism (which looks to be a totally sealed unit)? 

Pry out the narrow plastic trim piece immediately in front of the centre armrest. There's a key slot which you turn to unlock the release mech, then pull up the red fabric tab, you will see the dashboard go into neutral (it will also come up with a gearbox fault, this will clear when you put the tab back down and lock it).

Make sure you pull the tab up fully as it will try to spring back into park. 

To be clear this only puts it in neutral for recoveries, you can't use it to select D/R. 

[beko1987]

On 04/02/2025 at 23:02, AnthonyG said:

 

Mine is currently immobile (first time in my ownership of nearly 12 years tbf) 

Oh no, @hairnet it's happened, the Benchmark of reliable XF's is down 😱😱 

We're doomed

[hairnet]

his hat tried to go for pizza in it

[AnthonyG]

Strictly speaking it’s not immobile, as I managed to get it in and out of Drive this evening, so will be nursing it to the garage tomorrow afternoon. It has blotted its copybook a bit though.

Still at least the MX5 will get some (much needed) exercise 😅