Nov 20, 2010 02:29 PM
18447 Views
(Updated Nov 21, 2010 12:04 AM)
I have been owning a ford fiesta for the last 4 years. I have been driving myself all this while and it has done approximately 26 Km, which means I have only driven it from home to work and back :)
I however did a 1400 K drive from Mumbai to Chennai in 20 hrs and a Goa Mumbai in 8 hrs.
Well, the car is great to drive but maintenance is very high for this vehicle. In the first few years it used to give me a mileage of about 15km/l in city and up to 20 km/l on highways. But gone are those days and I get about 10 km in the city now and may be 15 km/l on highways.
But most importantly I feel the maintenance cost is very high. Every time I take the car for service which is every 5000km its cost me not less that 6 or 7 k, even if I don’t have any parts changed, except for the consumables and labour of course.
It also had a peculiar problem of fuel injection; The fuel injection system is controlled by an electromagnetic device called the "vehicle speed sensor" or the VSS sensor. This is a particularly faulty device in ford fiesta. This sensor controls the flow of fuel to the engine when you press the accelerator. While I was driving from Goa to Mumbai this sensor failed near Pune.
If this happens the vehicle will not respond to the accelerator push and will only move at a minimum speed of around 10 km per hour. I took me 5 hours to cover the Pune Mumbai stretch. The sensor failed again about a couple weeks ago after about 1 year from the last change. I again had a horrible experience this time in Chennai while I was driving back from mahabalipuram.
When I gave to vehicle for service, the Service engineer claimed that water had entered the gearbox and thus spoiled the sensor ( This is rediculous, since I quite a safe driver). I had to change the entire gear oil which costed me about 9.5 k along with labour. After I took the car from service and drove the car for about two weeks, the speed issu is again not resloved completely and this time the service centre guys claim that my clutch plate has worn out and needs to be replaced again for about 3.5 k.
I have never given the car for service in an unauthorised service station or let a driver drive the car. I was shocked to hear and I have feeling that I have been taken for a ride.
In a nutshell I am spending close to 25 k on service every year which is not great. I am planning to sell the vehicle after I do all the service.
I will not recommend ford fiesta ownership (whether you drive it for long distances or not) beyond 4 years max.
It may a good car but not at the cost of such huge maintenance bills.
