[AKSarkar1]

There is something inherently satisfying about seeing cars being used for the long-haul (as they were meant to be). The Fiesta was a gem of a car and the 1.6L engine was a pocket-rocket, I really used to enjoy the power band and the linearity with which the car used to pull.

Big Kudos to you for the lovely upkeep of the vehicle, I am sure it will hit the 2L+ Kms mark with no problems!

[aspire]

Fiesta is a beautiful car in the truest sense, I have a 2010 fiesta 1.4 exi, I am the third owner, the car had run hardly 30k, a joy to drive!

[Siva Prakash]

Originally Posted by GForceEnjoyer

Update:



I do have a burning question I'd like to ask before ending this post. In light of the E20 petrol rollout, what can we do to ensure that we can continue using the Fiesta for an indefinite period of time in the future? Any fuel additives or fuel system upgrades that can work? Or is the only option to switch to the hugely expensive XP100 petrol (10% ethanol) or the other 100 octane petrol from either BP/HP that is so far still 0% ethanol? What's the scene with private fuel stations like Essar, Nayara and Shell? The right grade of fuel slowly being made unavailable country-wide was something I never thought I'd see; yet, here we are.

Hello, it was nice meeting you today at the petrol pump, after which I saw this thread on team-bhp. I have the same question and still didn't find an answer, what makes it worse in my case is the low running of my Fiesta. Another thing that I noticed recently is the distance to empty on my MID after a full tank of fuel is lesser than what it used to be, did you also notice something like that?

[GForceEnjoyer]

Originally Posted by AKSarkar1

Big Kudos to you for the lovely upkeep of the vehicle, I am sure it will hit the 2L+ Kms mark with no problems!

Thank you so much for the kind words! I'd love to hear about your Fiesta too sometime.

Originally Posted by aspire

Fiesta is a beautiful car in the truest sense, I have a 2010 fiesta 1.4 exi, I am the third owner, the car had run hardly 30k, a joy to drive!

Wow, a great find! I'd love to hear more about it sometime. Definitely a beautiful car.

Originally Posted by Siva Prakash

Another thing that I noticed recently is the distance to empty on my MID after a full tank of fuel is lesser than what it used to be, did you also notice something like that?

I haven't really been paying that much attention to the readings of late, I will definitely check the next time and let you know. The last time i calculated the efficiency using the tankful to tankful method gave me something like 8.6 km/l. Quite low for sure (although it is possible that it occurred due to being driven only in rush hour traffic during that period).

No issues with general behaviour of the engine so far though, so I'll take it as a sign that all is good for now. Fingers crossed!

It was nice meeting you today at the petrol pump

Nice meeting you too! Great coincidence that we both ended up there at exactly the same time.

[Josh1927]

Originally Posted by GForceEnjoyer

Update:

I do have a burning question I'd like to ask before ending this post. In light of the E20 petrol rollout, what can we do to ensure that we can continue using the Fiesta for an indefinite period of time in the future? Any fuel additives or fuel system upgrades that can work? Or is the only option to switch to the hugely expensive XP100 petrol (10% ethanol) or the other 100 octane petrol from either BP/HP that is so far still 0% ethanol? What's the scene with private fuel stations like Essar, Nayara and Shell? The right grade of fuel slowly being made unavailable country-wide was something I never thought I'd see; yet, here we are.

Until next time, cheers!

Hi GForceEnjoyer,

First of all, glad to see you running a Fiesta for so long. The car simply deserves it!

I drive a 2015 1.6 petrol fiesta. First owner, and I love to keep the car stock. I too have noticed the declining petrol quality over the past few months at least. This has resulted in a lower DTE reading every time the tank is done full. It used to be in the range of 500-550km in 2020, now it maxes out at 450 or so (my car is running in mint condition with 75k on the odo). This is under city driving conditions. Needless to say, when I take it out on highways, the range it actually delivers is 500 odd km. Earlier, the actual highway range was an easy 550 km.

I have tried various fuels - standard with systemG, XP 95, XP 100, Nayara, Reliance etc. over the past 12 months. These are observations:

1. 20% ethanol in standard, XP 95, Speed - mileage goes for a toss with all of these fuels
2. XP100 has been good to the duratech engine. Definite improvement in pick-up and mileage. But it is way too costly, so an occasional thing.
3. Nayara has given mileage at par as with XP100 minus the pick-up boost. Nayara guys claim low ethanol mixing - less than 10%. Satisfactory so far.
4. I found reliance fuel same as standard ones from IOC/BP, although these guys claim only 10% ethanol mix (compared to 20% in the rest).
5. Never tried HP fuel.

Looks like we can only hope that at least one variant of the fuel is kept without/with low ethanol mix, over the next few years. I have no intentions of changing my car and the current fuel quality is already a piss off.

Some pics to refresh the mood though

[Vivian.A34]

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 friends Hyundai Verna and also my work colleagues Toyota Corolla but I can see the comfort I got in the Fiesta Classic was different and better then their 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 wind shield 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 cars use to talk with the clouds the power delivery was amazing and I really loved the cars performance and controll on highways.

Ground clearance was an issue always I had many at times the car getting bumped at the bottom center on speed bumps bigger then 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 SC FORD and Moharir FORD in my span with the car. Since it was a petrol engine I use to service it once in a year every 8 to 10months was my cycle and before the service the car use to have no issues it use to be general service I use to put my car at the service station but the day I bring my car back from the service center something use to fail. I do not know if this was my fate or the irony of the situation but it use to happen almost like everytime when I use 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 service Ford use to be very specific abou this. The dilema was I had to take my car back to the service center to change the part post service because they use 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 center managers because of the way the parts use to fail just after the service. And it also raised suspicion to me that why it use to happen only post service.

Over the period of 17 years with the car I had fallen use to it that my car would have some issues when it comes back from the service center and may be that was also one of the reasons I use 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 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 ask my wife to look at the Ford I use 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.

[GForceEnjoyer]

Originally Posted by Josh1927

These are observations:

1. 20% ethanol in standard, XP 95, Speed - mileage goes for a toss with all of these fuels
2. XP100 has been good to the duratech engine. Definite improvement in pick-up and mileage. But it is way too costly, so an occasional thing.
3. Nayara has given mileage at par as with XP100 minus the pick-up boost. Nayara guys claim low ethanol mixing - less than 10%. Satisfactory so far.
4. I found reliance fuel same as standard ones from IOC/BP, although these guys claim only 10% ethanol mix (compared to 20% in the rest).
5. Never tried HP fuel.

Extremely late thanks for the kind words, as well as your valuable observations. Fiestas have become so rare to come by in NCR, it's great to see yours in tip-top condition and frequently visiting the mountains! Our Fiesta also spent a ton of long weekends up in either Uttarakhand or Himachal Pradesh.

We tried a tankful of petrol from Nayara recently. Recently, the Fiesta has only been seeing city driving. Fuel economy (calculated tankful to tankful) was 8.7 kilometres per litre with the previous tank of fuel from IOCL, and at the next time we refueled, the fuel economy was 9.2 km/l.

Considering that the car is driven on basically the same route each time at nearly the same times of the day, I would count this as a positive observation. However, a definitive judgement can only be made with more long-term data (especially considering that I am a little unsure about the details of the fuel we get in Telangana), following the acquisition of which I will update the thread.

I can't comment about any performance improvement/degradation, however, since it's very difficult to go beyond 40 km/h and part-throttle in Hyderabad's traffic.

If we try out other fuels like XP95 (we've been using it since day one for our Superb), I will update the thread.

Originally Posted by Vivian.A34

I sold my beauty this year with a very heavy eyes when I bought the Sonet D 1.5 IMT, again another post 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 ask my wife to look at the Ford I use to drive.

Wonderful write-up. Great to read about your experience with the Fiesta and how lovingly you cared for it. Very astute observations too; the engine does not like to be lugged at all, and is far happier at higher revs!

I'm sure the new owner would have gotten to know what they've acquired after driving it a few times.

[Bibendum90949]

Originally Posted by Vivian.A34

I use to put my car at the service station but the day I bring my car back from the service center something use to fail. I do not know if this was my fate or the irony of the situation but it use to happen almost like everytime when I use 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 service Ford use to be very specific abou this. The dilema was I had to take my car back to the service center to change the part post service because they use 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 center managers because of the way the parts use to fail just after the service. And it also raised suspicion to me that why it use to happen only post service.

Over the period of 17 years with the car I had fallen use to it that my car would have some issues when it comes back from the service center and may be that was also one of the reasons I use to take my car only once in a year for service.

An old timer at that service centre who was in charge of pressure washing wasn't doing his job right is what my speculative mind says. Hope there was no pressure washing done for the engine bay.

Be rest assured, you'll be getting top notch service experience at Kia. Congratulations and all the best with your new car.

I've owned a Fiesta too in the past(2006-11). Boy, what a joy it was to drive that. I'm just reproducing one of my related posts.

Originally Posted by Bibendum90949

I too echo the same sentiments. i've always been an admirer of Ford Fiesta. I had a 1.5 TDCi though. In my two and half decades of driving and of all the cars i've driven, this is one car I always wanted to be behind the wheel. After having upgraded from a smaller hatch those days, it was one car that made me realise there's more to driving pleasure than merely driving. The steering feedback and precision that it offers is unmatched. Add to that the leech like grip it possesses - it's chassis play a big role there. My 5 years of driving (2006-11) and a lakh plus kms in it was an eye opener of sorts too and edified me into the most sought after element a driving enthusiast yearns for - handling of a car.

IMHO, more fun lies in the handling of a car than tapping all of it's power resources. As Rohit_Quad mentioned, the icing on the cake is it's hydraulic steering - it oozes such high degree of confidence to the driver. How I wish the modern day cars has the same steering set up too.

Compared to that, I hate the EPS in most of the modern cars. It's taking out the major chunk of the fun quotient in driving a car - my personal opinion.

Few pictures of the close-to-heart Fiesta from my archives.

[arjithin]

@anyone who owns a fiesta still, Could you please post some photos of your Bonnet latching mechanism ?
My fiesta's latch/cable is broken and to replace I need to open the bonnet first.

[Josh1927]

Originally Posted by arjithin

@anyone who owns a fiesta still, Could you please post some photos of your Bonnet latching mechanism ?
My fiesta's latch/cable is broken and to replace I need to open the bonnet first.

Posting some pics, hope these help

[darxide]

just posting a few pics of my 2009 fiesta 1.6 exi. this car is arestoration in progess

[GForceEnjoyer]

An uneventful fuel-up before a highway spin turned into quite the unpleasant surprise today. I calculated the fuel efficiency via the usual tankful to tankful method, and the result left me shocked. 7.41 km/l! This is the lowest ever figure I've ever gotten.

In fact, over the last 6 or so months, I've been observing the figures slowly but surely drop from the low 10s into the 9s and the occasional 8s, and now this! It's not like fuel efficiency matters much to us, but this is frankly absurd, considering that it's a 1.6 litre inline-four engine in a ~1 tonne car at the end of the day. Increased ethanol blending rearing its ugly head?

Anyways, to liven things up, here are two CDs that I dug out to add to the already insane collection for this car:


A service is due soon, following which (and the completion of my boards) I will update the thread further.

Originally Posted by darxide

just posting a few pics of my 2009 fiesta 1.6 exi. this car is arestoration in progess

Wow, it's been years since I last saw this spec. Do keep us updated on this restoration! What do you plan to do?

[GForceEnjoyer]

1,20,000 km firsthand update from behind the wheel!

I returned home from college for winter break only to log on to Team-BHP and find out that I had not updated this thread in an awfully long time! As 2024 draws to a close, here is a gist of what's been going on with the Fiesta lately.

Just before summer fully kicked in this year, the car overheated in a traffic jam due to the thermostat and cooling fan failing. Fortunately, we were able to pull over safely reasonably quickly, and had turned off the A/C and put the heater on full blast in the meantime.

We got the car towed to Ford service, who had us replace a lot of the cooling system. Here's the list.


Usually, we'd be skeptical of such large replacement recommendations, but this time we decided to let it happen since the cooling system is ultimately something one cannot afford to have fail on them.

Here's the thermostat.



The ironic part is that the incident happened on the drive back from Chequered Flag, an independent garage we wanted to consult for future maintenance due to our dissatisfaction with Ford aftersales. By the way, we recieved a flat out refusal for non-cosmetic work, citing difficulties in sourcing parts for a discontinued car whose manufacturer had left the country (they had a Mustang and other imports, a Camaro and a couple of full-size American pickups in the compound that day; go figure!). Anyways, since this is all an irrelevant memory now, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and not go into the details of the interaction, which in all honesty, left me a little miffed overall due to other (again irrelevant) reasons.

Anyways, on to the good stuff: at long last, I turned 18 in October this year! I had an incredibly fortunately timed mid-semester break from college, for which I returned to Hyderabad and wrote the learner licence test on the morning of my birthday itself. After that, under my dad's guidance, I finally, finally got behind the wheel of the Fiesta, the car which also brought me home from the hospital for the first time! I simply could not have wished for a better birthday gift than this. I will pen down more detailed firsthand driving impressions at a later stage when I get fully familiar with all aspects of the car as well as of driving. Here's to hoping that I will be able to do justice to both.

We later carried out two small repairs too; One was replacing a discoloured headlight lens and the other was fixing a window which would occasionally get stuck when being rolled back up. Here are some random pictures taken afterwards with the car looking all fresh again. This design has aged very well; it's older than yours truly!



For the most recent service, we finally ditched Ford aftersales and went over to Revive Auto. In short, it was a very smooth experience with an OBD scan being performed instantly upon us dropping the car off and a job card being subsequently generated. Our service advisor was fantastic, knowledgeable as well as fun to talk to about the car itself. The car was then handed to us the next day as promised, having been made squeaky clean inside and out. Here's the bill. Cost-wise too, this shop is a no-brainer over Ford aftersales; very reasonable and professional.


The car is performing fantastically well as of now. As for the immediate future, we might just have a substantial road trip on the cards, the first out-of-state excursion in the Fiesta since the arrival of our ultra-long distance cruiser, the Superb. I will certainly update this thread (someday, whenever my college workload permits) about the same later. Until then, feast your eyes on this small portion of the CD collection that will be accompanying us.


Well, what an incredible honour and privilege it is to be behind the wheel of a car from the bygone era of hydraulic power steering and relatively large naturally aspirated petrols, no beeps and bongs at arbitrary speeds, no electronic distractions beyond a barebones LCD screen for an MID and a 6-CD changer for the stereo. Despite having driving just a few hundred kilometres cumulatively at the time of writing, I can tell you one thing so far: the Fiesta is a car that gives you a driving experience you don't need to be isolated or numbed from.

As a parting shot, here's yours truly behind the wheel!


Until next time. Cheers!

[ads295]

Originally Posted by GForceEnjoyer

7.41 km/l! Increased ethanol blending rearing its ugly head?

While I agree that E20 will definitely impact fuel efficiency, these figures are abysmal considering my 1350kg car with a V6 and torque converter AT gets 8kmpl on highways...
You should investigate into this.

[JunkyardHunter]

It was really cool seeing this thread update as I was reading it. And that your Fiesta looks absolutely stunning! We also had a 2007 white Fiesta 1.4 petrol ZXi.