My Ford Fiesta Classic 1.6 petrol: Ownership experience over 17 years

The visibility of the road through the windshield was perfect which I did not feel right with the Verna and the Corolla.

BHPian Vivian.A34 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Recently I wrote about my experience with Altroz XZ 1.2 Revtron engine which my brother owns in a different post where I had also mentioned about my old time love the Ford Fiesta Classic. I did mention there I will write a different post for my experience with this gem that I owned.

Firstly to start with the comfort of this car it was top notch, better then most of the sedans in the market. I had driven my friend’s Hyundai Verna and also my work colleague’s Toyota Corolla but I can see the comfort I got in the Fiesta Classic was different and better then its competitors. It gave me a sense of confidence when driving the vehicle on highways and also on busy roads. The visibility of the road through the windshield was perfect which I did not feel right with the Verna and the Corolla. The drive quality and the control at high speeds was absolutely amazing. The power delivery from 20 to 40kmph on 3rd gear was nominal. I always felt the pickup was not that great on 3rd but when on higher speeds the car used to talk with the clouds, the power delivery was amazing and I really loved the car’s performance and control on highways.

Ground clearance was an issue always. I had many at times had the car getting bumped at the bottom center on speed bumps bigger than normal. Overall Ford had done a fantastic job in building this car. My main challenge was maintaining the car the customer service guys were bad and I had a couple of complaints raised for two service centres in my span with the car. Since it was a petrol engine I used to service it once in a year every 8 to 10 months was my cycle and before the service the car used to have no issues, it used to be general service. I used to put my car at the service station but the day I bring my car back from the service center something used to fail. I do not know if this was my fate or the irony of the situation but it used to happen almost like everytime when I used to bring my car back from the service center. Sometimes it was the power window sometimes it use to be the headlamp and sometimes it use to be the AC. And I use to service my car only at Ford service centers because the parts where not available outside for local. Ford service used to be very specific about this. The dilemma was I had to take my car back to the service centre to change the part post service because they used to have a standard dialogue that it is a old model and the electrical part can fail anytime. I have had huge fights with the service centre managers because of the way the parts used to fail just after the service. And it also raised suspicion to me that why it happened only post service.

Over the period of 17 years with the car, I had gotten used to it that my car would have some issues when it comes back from the service centre and may be that was also one of the reasons I used to take my car only once in a year for service. I am sure it would have been the after sales service which caused Ford heavy losses and may be that was their major reason for India exit or else they build fantastic cars.

I sold my beauty this year with a very heavy eyes when I bought the Sonet D 1.5 IMT, again another post due soon for the review of my IMT. Sometimes I still wonder how my old Fiesta Classic is taken care of by the new owner and when I see someone else driving the same model on the road, I tell my wife to look at the Ford I used to drive. I obviously had a special relationship with my old car and hopefully my new ownership experience with the Kia would be better in terms of after sales service.

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