Faults:

Strange rubbing under the wing mirrors, which started to rub the the paint off where the mirrors meet the doors. Seems like a common problem. Fixed with some help towards the cost by Ford under the warranty.

General Comments:

Excellent drivers car. Have had this now for 5 years and there is nothing I would swap it for.

Superb handling, excellent economy and service, and parts are very reasonable!!! If you have kids, check out the seats very extensively to see which ones really fit.

Faults:

On delivery (27 miles on the clock), the brakes lights were jammed on. Took two visits to the Ford workshop before it was fixed, in the first week of ownership.

Electric door mirror on passenger side non-functional on 3 separate occasions. Dealer took 3 years to fix this fault properly (under warranty luckily).

After 3000 miles, the finish on the steering wheel started to come off (dealer said this was normal wear and tear).

After 4 years and only 15,000 genuine miles, the seals between the front panels and the bulkhead failed. This allowed rainwater to ingress into the foot wells. Wrote a letter of complaint to Ford Customer Service in Glasgow, but was effectively told that this was normal wear and tear for a car of this age and mileage! Cost 300 quid to get fixed.

Currently cannot use the heated rear screen as this blows the fuse to the instrument cluster.

Rear parcel shelf has never fitted properly.

Odd rattles inside coming from the drivers door. Cannot locate fault.

Electric windows occasionally do not function. Intermittent fault.

Paint work is very fragile, it chips very easily, especially on the bonnet.

General Comments:

What a great shame!

As a drivers car, this vehicle is simply superb, handles like a dream and has great performance through the gears. It should be a winner.

Unfortunately, poor build quality, indifferent dealer service and general denial of these problems by Ford UK themselves (after I wrote to complain about the shoddy build quality), all combine to ensure that I shall never buy another product from this company.

I am buying an Audi S4 this summer (anyone know any reason why I should reconsider this choice - I would be grateful for comments!)

Faults:

The car goes through tyres fairly quickly, and my air conditioning unit broke, but other than that nothing at all.

General Comments:

This is a seriously good car, just read the write-ups from the magazines.

It's very quick from about 2,500 revs up to 5,500 revs and if you change up at that point the engine is still on song.

I've always averaged about 35 mpg and its extremely cheap to run. In 60,000 miles it has been the cheapest car I've ever had!

The brakes are only average, the traction control non-existent and it doesn't like speed bumps one tiny bit.

It handles like a dream, I've done a lot of single seater racing and rallying and this car is fantastic.

It looks great, costs nowt, goes fantastically and I love it!

Faults:

Fuel oxygen sensor - replaced, after third visits to the dealer who couldn't find the fault the first two times.

Clutch - after 30k.

Various bits of trim.

Front discs (40k)

It leaks in the boot heavy rain.

The rear parcel shelf is made out of lightly reinforced tissue paper.

General Comments:

This car is a revelation. I replaced a MGF with this and it is immeasurably better to drive.

The car handles with a fluency and precision I have never experienced before.

The performance is amazing for such a small non boosted engine.

The car needs to be revved hard to get the best out of it, but it likes to rev so that is OK.

The gearbox is electric switch like in operation with a beautiful easy clutch. This is better than a BMW 'box.

The car is quite cramped inside and visibility is poor in just about all directions.

The instruments and interior trim are cheap - but it is a cheap car!

The lights are poor.

The carpet is worn through on the drivers foot-well after just 50k! The leather trimmed steering wheel is flaking. The alloy gear-knob is still lovely, but very cold in the winter.

The car manages just 250 miles on a tank (about 40mpg) regardless of how it is driven.

The car looks great - why can't other manufacturers have the guts to do this sort of thing?