Faults:

Gearbox blew after 2 days leaving the clutch, drive shaft and entire gearbox needing to be replaced. Myself and two friends managed to replace them at a pretty cheap cost. We paid 60 notes for the gearbox from our local scrappy and bought the drive shaft and clutch from German & Swedish. Total cost was around £120.

Starter motor is old and tired, and taking lumps out of the teeth of the flywheel.

Alternator is unable to charge the battery due to the large system install which requires jump-leads every morning.

Gasket also went on the rocker cover.

General Comments:

Incredibly quick on acceleration. Manage to compete with and beat many hot hatches upto 1600cc. 1600i Escort mk5's are a breeze (sorry Ben).

Not overly impressed with the interior. Relatively dull and boring.

Faults:

In order:

Valve stem oils seals + head gasket.

Sticking brake caliper.

Rear torsion beam mountings came loose.

Master cylinder blew internally.

Spring mounting twisted.

Rear wiper stopped working.

Rear brake pipe leak.

Sticking tappet.

Alternator failed (taking the battery with it).

Starter wiring mounts corroded thus needed replacing mounts.

Earth strap corroded.

Interior lights intermittent faults.

Dashboard mountings broke + cracked.

Carburetter float chamber bob perished and broke. Pieces of which blocked the fuel jets.

Intermittent idle control fault appears after damp evenings. Car idles between 3500 and 0 even when warm without choke!

Door lock broke.

Inner CV joint exploded.

General Comments:

All those faults have occurred in the last 3 months!

Not a reliable car, but is very quick when going.

For a car with so little power (this one's producing about 93bhp) it is very quick overall.

Cornering excellent due to LEDA/Peugeot 205 suspension.

Brakes also need commending (full Mintex setup). This car stops faster than most high performance cars.

The car may be hard (due to suspension), but the seats are excellent, transmitting important information through base yet very supportive when cornering.

Soon there will be very little left of the car I bought, thus improving it's reliability.

Only then may this car be usable and fun.

Faults:

The interior carpet has started to wear badly.

The brakes have needed a few repairs.

General Comments:

The car is very nippy for a 1.1, and holds the road well.

The dash is stylish, for the age of the car, and all buttons are within easy reach.

However, the stereo (positioned at the top of the dash) often overheats when the car is parked in direct sunlight.

Faults:

Gear linkage broke after 10000 miles. Only £10 to replace though.

Head gasket blew after 15000 miles; this needed a new radiator and head gasket.

Battery and alternator have both gone, but this is more due to a large stereo install.

Apart from that, general service things like brakes and exhaust parts.

The most important thing - it's NEVER broken down on me in the entire 4 and a half years I've had it.

The interior carpets are only just starting to show signs of wear now.

One problem, those of you who aren't willing to get your hands dirty under the engine - wet weather can eventually lead to injectors being clogged in the carbuerretor - this is easily fixable, but can be problematic if you don't know what you're doing.

General Comments:

For an old car, it's very reliable, and ridiculously quick from a standing start. It's no wonder it's still used in hill climbing races, as the car is very low geared; this can mean a lot of wheel-spin, especially in the wet if you try and put your foot down!

When I first got the car it would do nearly 70mph in 2nd gear, and registered 110mph top speed. Nowadays it tops out around 100mph, but probably just needs a good clean.

The suspension is a little too soft; I'm thinking of getting mine lowered to make cornering less of a hassle - the suspension doesn't really do such a quick car justice.

Mechanically - the engine is very easy to work on, and shares a lot of parts from the Peugeot 205XS, which means that if you can't get the AX part, a Peugeot alternative will often fit (I speak from experience here!). Dead cheap to run, parts available everywhere at low prices, and very easy to work on engine wise, as there's no engine management system to mess you about!