Rust issues on my Ford Fiesta & how I managed to fix them

The development of rust beneath the ORVM on the Fiesta is a common and recurring issue.

BHPian DocwithFiesta recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hello!

The development of rust beneath the ORVM on the Fiesta is a common and recurring issue mainly due to the way the car was designed. Our car is no different.

She has been through 2 panel wise repaints (first time, both the front doors and the roof were sorted{year 2017}, and after 2 years of that, the rear doors started developing rust too and were sorted) and one full body repaint (year 2022), not because of any accident or so, but due to the rusting issue.

Attaching some pics of the infamous rust prone areas:

Around right ORVM:

Around left ORVM:

Along right A-Pillar and part of roof adjacent to that:

Along left A-Pillar and part of roof adjacent to that:

The pics above are from the year 2017.

The rust on our car had reached cancerous levels by 2021 with metastasis almost everywhere, on every panel and that's when we decided to get the entire thing sorted at once.

The total process(of tinkering and repainting) costed about 70k rupees, and was not done from ASS for obvious reasons.

Some recent pictures of our Fiesta:

Coming to the coolant tank crack issue: We too faced similar problem back in 2013 I believe- we fixed it at home with a rubber solution and the problem has not recurred since.

And ignition switch issue: Faced this issue as well, in 2018, where the key would not rotate and get stuck before the cranking part. Dissected the ignition switch at home to the very last part, and reassembled it which sorted the problem. Never faced the issue again.

The Fiesta is a car that simply cannot be matched by any modern car(or any car for that matter) when it comes to driving dynamics, steering feel and highway stability, and the 1.6L engine is still relevant in modern times, which makes spending money on it quite justifiable!

Thank you.

Check out BHPian comments for insights and information.