Faults:

Driver's side door lock failed to open the car when I bought it. It took an hour to swap the lock barrels from the passengers door to the driver's door and visa-versa.

The gas struts to hold the boot lid up have both stopped working. These are cheap and easy to replace from the scrap yard.

The tape/radio front has come off, but it still works. It may be very difficult to change without the specialist tool for removing it so I haven't bothered.

General Comments:

There is a lot of rust on all the doors, but the car is solid in the important places like underneath. There has never been a plate welded onto the underside.

It is a good cheap car. Cheap to run, repair and insure.

There is plenty of room in all four seats and the boot is spacious.

This car has enough power to be interesting, holds the road well and will sit at 70mph without any fuss.

Faults:

When I bought the car, the radiator fan switch didn't work - bought a new one for £6.

Battery has seen better days.

Tappets are knocking a bit.

Valve stem seals hard - blue smoke visible on startup/idle.

General Comments:

I'm very pleased with this car, I bought it for only £150 and for that it's brilliant.

It runs very well, and accelerates very quickly. It also sounds quite good and handles pretty well - it's good fun to drive. Remember, this car features the engine and running gear from the Escort XR3i so it's bound to be a bit of a laugh, and that it is!

The paintwork is mint with only a tiny ding to the driver's door, there is fairly major rusting to the rear arches and slam panel with other odd spots of rust beginning to appear on the bonnet, boot lid and boot floor.

The equipment level is this car's major plus point - the electric windows, electric mirrors, central locking, heated windscreens, ABS, trip computer, alloy wheels and boot spoiler are all brilliant, and it all works too.

I reckon the car looks great - it has an RS Accessories boot lid spoiler and alloy wheels, and is finished in white over dark grey.

I truly love this car, it's brilliant - fun to drive, well equipped, good-looking and best of all, it was a complete bargain when I got it!

Faults:

Towards the end of me owning the car the rear arches began to blister quite badly. All four electric windows had to be repaired at some point and it had a recurring electrical problem on the rear light clusters where moisture was seeping into the boot.

General Comments:

I only bought the orion as a stop gap after selling a TurboTechnics Sierra XR4x4 that was proving a little expensive to run at the time. I only intended to keep it briefly until I found something better, but I was so impressed with it that it stayed for a number of years and was then passed on to my mum. When she sold it, it had covered over 135000 miles and apart from routine maintenance it never cost a penny. It went straight through every MOT whilst we owned it and only once needed any sort of work (welding to a sill that cost £60). It was fitted with a 90 spec RS turbo front bumper with clear indicators and RS 7 spoke alloys that had been machined and polished to a mirror finish. All the body rubbing strips had been removed and the car was resprayed in the later radiant red rather than the older, duller original rosso red. The engine had a polished and ported head with a piper 285 fast road cam. It had a four branch manifold and a Tornado exhaust, was lowered by 30mm all round with black diamond cross drilled and grooved discs up front. I also fitted after much trial and error a home made induction kit to the car which made a lovely noise. Overall the car was comfortable, a respectable if not rapid performer and the 1600 CVH was unburstable. It also lacked the ar**hole factor of the XR3i with all that cars performance on tap. To my knowledge the car is still going strong and must be sporting intergalactic mileage by now!!