Faults:

Exhaust sealing ring - led to poor performance and fuel economy due to a mis-informed ECU. This was fixed at 46000 miles - believe the trouble had first started around 42000 but I assumed I was being frustrated by the cars low power.

Seats have started to wear (the fabric has a couple of snags).

The drivers side headlight was letting in water and filling with water. A replacement was £65 from Ford. A full repair including fitting by Ford is £130.

General Comments:

The car is based on the Puma chassis and shows. However, the large profile 13" wheels my car comes with lets the handling down - they start to lose grip although it is easily controllable. This has improved now I use Pirelli based Ceat tyres (£40 each inc. fitting).

The driving position has limited adjustment (I am 6 foot 5, but it is better than my old car).

This car is ridiculously cheap to insure. It is Group 2, which means anyone of any age can afford to insure it. If you can't, don't drive.

One problem with the car is safe overtaking - there are no blind spots apart from the A-pillars (the corners of the windscreen) but the car does not have sufficient power to overtake safely in most scenarios. Just don't expect it to be like a twin cam engine like I did... I got a nasty surprise! This car is more meant for cruising in 5th gear. I do an 80 mile round trip to University 5 days a week and achieve 50mpg in mixed conditions. Yes, that figure is correct. In town, this drops to roughly 40mpg.

Faults:

I have had not one problem with my car since having it, I can say it's been 100% reliable.

General Comments:

Although it's only a little 1.3 engine, I can still get power out of it.

People say it's small inside, but it's a small car, what do you expect? I usually only carry myself and one passenger in the car anyway.

I really can't think of a bad thing to say, the car's cheap on insurance and tax, petrol is really good, and it's always been reliable.

I have a Collection, which has more than a normal model, such as electric windows, A/C, CD player etc.

Faults:

Steering failed at 50,000 miles nearly causing a serious accident.

After investigation, it has been found that the universal joint, mounted on top of the power steering rack had seized up, causing the steering to 'lock' into place.

The Ford dealership had not experienced this problem before and the Ford Motor Company have yet to reply to my urgent communication.

If your steering becomes heavy, particularly at different angles of wheel movement: please stop driving and have this investigated at the first opportunity. By removing the universal joint, it will move in One direction, but not the other. This is probably a 'one off' manufacturing fault with the component, hope fully!

General Comments:

In general it has been a good car, however, the gearbox mounts have gone several times in 50,000 miles. The front steering bearings on top of the shock absorbers have worn out on 4 occasions. Also the car failed its first MOT after 23,000 miles. I would not buy Ford again because the spares are very expensive and there is little or no backup from Ford in terms of information and product recalls.