News

Turned 18 and finally got behind the wheel of our Ford Fiesta 1.6L

26th January 2025, 09:00 by Ritesh Patil

I can tell you one thing so far: the Ford Fiesta is a car that gives you a driving experience you don't need to be isolated or numbed from.

BHPian GForceEnjoyer recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

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!