A decent car – every time you get in it you should look forward to it and they don’t get dull

That’s what beer, narcotics, naked ladies and bikes are for….

Cars. A > B. You’ll only go as fast as the guy in front, be sat in traffic and spending money on a depreciating object.

Although, I’m saying that despite having a mk2 MX5 sat outside that cost me just shy of a grand in repairs two months back and hasn’t been driven in two weeks…. Irrational, isn’t it.

Sharkattack- I think if your other finances are in order, then do it!
I’m a (fast) Ford fan. I had the Mk7.5 Fiesta ST and the performance and handling was superb.
It’s the most fun I’ve had driving. I even found myself going for a drive just for the hell of it. Something I’ve not done before or since, despite having nicer cars.

I’ve been toying with the idea of the Fiesta Performance edition too. Great colour, awesome little extra tech and a little more refined than the old version.

If finances are stable and you’ve got some money saved, then do it. Worst case is selling/handing the car back early. It’s only money.

£27k for a Fiesta?

Genuine lol.

Cars. A > B. You’ll only go as fast as the guy in front, be sat in traffic and spending money on a depreciating object.

People like different things and spend their money on different things 🙂

If you’re picking it up on Friday, does that mean it will be taxed from 1st July?

£27k for a Fiesta?

It’s not though is it?

If you’re picking it up on Friday, does that mean it will be taxed from 1st July?

When he thought we were picking it up today he said they’d taxed it for 1 year and 1 week so we didn’t lose a month. Can a dealer buy tax in weekly chunks? He did say we’d have a full year on it.

24 hours to go.

When he thought we were picking it up today he said they’d taxed it for 1 year and 1 week so we didn’t lose a month. Can a dealer buy tax in weekly chunks? He did say we’d have a full year on it.

No, it’s either 6 or 12 months. So if it’s taxed today then you’ll only get 11 months + 2 days. Ideally, get it taxed on 1st Aug!

Either way, enjoy your new motor – have fun 👍

Dealers do have an extra ability to tax a car for a smidge more than the 12 months. I had the same when I picked mine up – registered the month before but still taxed for a year from collection date.

Photos & impressions when you’ve got it please!
It might just push me over the edge to get one.

Spending £27K on a motor , and people are worried about a tenner lost on a months tax ?

Get a grip of yourselves 😉

Dealers do have an extra ability to tax a car for a smidge more than the 12 months. I had the same when I picked mine up – registered the month before but still taxed for a year from collection date.

Is this a recent change then? Or only applies to brand new cars? It was a few years ago when I bought my last car (was second hand) but wasn’t aware this was possible.

Photos & impressions when you’ve got it please!
It might just push me over the edge to get one

I can’t think of a single reason not to buy one….yet.

We picked it up this morning with 11 miles on the clock, by far the lowest number I’ve ever seen. We took the long way home from Chesterfield via a big chunk of the Peak and took it very easy.

It was bumper to bumper traffic everywhere and Sheffield is in full heatwave crazy mode with all the lunatics starting to foam at the mouth. It’s getting frantic out there so we carefully drove home and stuck it in the garage.

We’re having a Ghost immobiliser fitted tomorrow so it hopefully shouldn’t vanish from anywhere. 3 years gap insurance purchased just in case.

Bare in mind, I’m 40 in a few years, and when I told my mother I’d bought a brand new car she was horrified. She acted like I’d traded the family jewels for magic beans. She sounds like a crazy person but that’s absolutely where I got my fear of borrowing money from.

Now that we’ve got it I’m buzzing. I’ve just been sitting in it, in the garage, pressing all the buttons, setting everything up.

I’ll hopefully have a less nerve wracking drive tomorrow and get some pictures.

Cheers everyone!

She sounds like a crazy person but that’s absolutely where I got my fear of borrowing money from.

Are you my brother?

get some pictures.

Waiting for the joy of those to appear.

Pleased for you.
I seem to recall 3/4 years ago you were – or had been – living in a van and then found a place in Sheffield.
If that’s about right, it’s great your life has moved on so positively.
That makes me doubly pleased.

Enjoy.😎🤸

Are you my brother?

She put the fear of the money lenders into me from a young age and to be fair it worked because when my mates started discovering loans and credit cards they got themselves into all kinds of trouble.

I seem to recall 3/4 years ago you were – or had been – living in a van and then found a place in Sheffield.
If that’s about right, it’s great your life has moved on so positively.

Yes that was me. We were talking about that today actually because my next door neigbour was asking about how we ended up in Sheffield.

In a nut shell, I got laid off from a job at a family business in Newcastle, lost my room in a shared house and couldn’t stay with family for various reasons. I had everything I owned in my van so I just drove away. I used the Ride Sheffield Facebook group to find a job, someone on here pointed me towards a room in a nice house.

Nearly 4 years later I’ve got a permanent job that I love and is relatively safe. Unfortunately the man who brought me up (not my Dad) died of cancer a couple of years back and we got an unexpected financial bump which was just enough to get on the property ladder.

So yeah it’s been a mad rollercoaster. My life is unrecognisable from 5 years ago when I was going from job to job and feeling like I was getting to the end of my rope.

I feel like I should add that my girlfriend is an absolute saint and I couldn’t have done any of it without her. I just need to start riding my mountain bike again and I’ll be living my best life.

Coming in a bit late, but can you get these secondhand?
In the same sort of area, I’d never had a new motorbike. With this lockdown. and a friend dying, I thought, sod it, I’m getting a new bike.
The loan was amazingly cheap, £600 interest over 4 years.
I went and test rode a bike, and was going to buy the one in the Dealers reduced to 10k.
then an advert for exactly the same bike came up on FB Marketplace, 250 miles, 20% reduction over the new price, and including a pile of extras.
So I bought that. I still havent owned a brand new bike, but with the price reduction I got, I’m not at all bothered.

sharky, thanks for the update; the loss of a loved one is always difficult to live with but, in your case, it’s also helped you move your life forward so that makes it bitter-sweet.
It’s good that you have a saint in the form of your GF.

As for alanl – you’re posting to the wrong thread.

Can’t wait to see the pics.

I had a new Fiesta ST way back in 2006 when they were a NA 2l engine. It was loads of fun.

I just need to start riding my mountain bike again

Yes you should.

I’ve finally been out for a cruise. If you need a full review then check one of the dozens of road tests on YouTube. I have been and will continue to drive like a Granny for now. I can’t tell you if the Quaife LSD is hooking up or if the Michelin Super Sports are the last word in grip.

We’re coming into this from a 10 year old Panda and a 10 year old Transit Connect so it feels like Darth Vaders Tie Fighter.

The seats are mint, the stereo and DAB is amazing. Cruising around in the sun listening to Craig Charles, I’ve been waiting ages to do that.

No regrets but we’re only a day in. We have to start paying for it now.

Edit: look at the arch gap in the last picture! I can’t believe that’s the factory ride height. It actually rides really well. Jiggly but not crashy. It also comes with a tool kit for the coilovers so I can wind the height up and down and play with the compression and rebound clickers.

Very nice!
Enjoy.

Just make sure you run it in gently for the sake of the engine and the brakes.
Yeah, there will someone along in a minute to say it makes no difference, but IMO it does.

That’s fantastic! Have fun!

Stanage? Good job you took it easy. Parts of that road are in a terrible state. So warped it’s turned into speed bumps.

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Yes that’s Stanage plantation in the background, the place you get a great view of thieves breaking into your car as you climb.

Nice colour, Madame saw a Zoé in that colour but it must have been a wrap because when we went to order orange wasn’t a list colour.

I’ve had a go in a few of these and almost got a last generation car. For any of the doubters the FST is one of those rare cars that you can jump in and tell how good it is within the first few hundred meters, from control weighting, position, chassis feel, responsiveness. It’s no surprise that the rare few that can manage this degree of chassis setup quality end up being the most rewarding and special drivers cars – in fact I’ve driven many full blown sports cars that don’t match it for chassis feel, it really is that good. My lasting impression from test driving one and being a bit dreamy was that owning one could be like every corner would be an opportunity to learn about the art of cornering, so few modern cars feel this way. Enjoy it.

So warped it’s turned into speed bumps.

Yeah it’s shocking. I just wanted to do a little loop of something I’ve done a hundred times in the 100hp. In that car you could feel your vertebrae clinking against each other and now it’s just mildly annoying.

so few modern cars feel this way. Enjoy it

That’s exactly it. I love cars but it’s once in a blue moon that a manufacturer releases a car that I’d actually consider buying, at least in my price range. If it wasn’t this car now, before all 600 have sold out, it would have been something completely different. We would have bought a regular Fiesta or Golf or something and I’d still be pouring over eBay every day for Elises and Imprezas.

The only other car coming out soon that looks really exciting is the GR Yaris and that’s a good chunk more expensive.

My lasting impression from test driving one and being a bit dreamy was that owning one could be like every corner would be an opportunity to learn about the art of cornering, so few modern cars feel this way.

That was going to be my main criticism of this car, nice as it is, its still fwd, which is never going to be as interesting to drive, or teach you skills like a rear wheel drive car.

Hopefully this car still allows you to left foot brake and has a manual handbrake ?

Know what you mean but there are a very limited few FWD cars that will oversteer on demand, lift-off or tucking in hard on a LSD. Hot Mini’s do it, RS Meganes, this one will do it. Properly entertaining on track and explorable at low speeds on roads when rare circumstances allow, involving at low speeds being the key here. Would rather have a sorted FWD chassis than a pinned down and dull 4wd any day of the week. Agree with RWD being the purest driving experience but name me a new RWD car of this performance level that isn’t close to double the price…GT86 maybe, MX5 a bit soft in comparison…

That was going to be my main criticism of this car, nice as it is, its still fwd, which is never going to be as interesting to drive, or teach you skills like a rear wheel drive car

Luckily I’m not on a mission to become a driving legend. This is just an amusing daily driver and nothing else.

Also all my cars early on were RWD, some with 3 times the power they left the factory with. I passed my test when you could buy a 200sx for £500. Apart from a 205 GTi this is the first time I’ve deliberately bought a fastish FWD car.

I’m under no illusions about what a Fiesta is and what else I could have had. I’ll definitely get it on 3 wheels at some point but my days of navigating roundabouts using the side windows are over!

I’ll definitely get it on 3 wheels at some point

Three? They normally take all four. 😉

Three? They normally take all four. 

My next thread was going to be “what CCTV?”

A good steering wheel lock would be my first accessory for an ST. When my Peugeot 605 SVi was a nice car someone tired to steal it. They got in and started it but failed to get the steering wheel lock off. A few hundred euros in repairs rather than all the expense/hassle of a stolen car.

We had a Ghost immobiliser fitted yesterday. You need to press a few buttons in a certain order before you start the engine. You can start the engine without the code but as soon as you pull away it dies.

I’ll probably get a steering lock as a visual deterrent. I love seeing it on the drive so I’d like it to stay put. The big mango blob breaks up the line of white Audi’s in the street.

You can start the engine without the code but as soon as you pull away it dies.

That’s excellent, stuck in the middle of the road isn’t the place to try and overcome an anti-theft device.

Good for you Sharkie, I remember your thread from times ago……times are uncertain, no-one knows what the future holds. Have fun in it, be sensible-ish, and keep it rubber side down.

Looking at buying the newest car I’ve ever owned, probably tomorrow! Nothing like Sharky’s ST, but it is a Ford, and an ST-Line, and based on the Fiesta platform.
My old Skoda is now getting pretty elderly, bit like me, is literally worth nothing and will definitely need work to get through it’s next MOT in October, so I’ve been considering lots of options. As my job for the last five years has involved driving a great many cars, I’ve been able to properly form an opinion. I certainly wouldn’t buy a BMW, or a Mercedes – I just don’t like BMW’s, and Merc’s have certain idiosyncrasies that annoy me, plus there have been four go through work that have died, for no obvious reason, after the battery has gone flat, and have proved impossible to get going, leaving on a flatbed trailer, so my view of them is somewhat jaundiced!
What I’m going for is a 69-plate EcoSport ST-Line, with less than 4000 miles on the clock.
It’s going to auction at 10am, so I have to get the dealer near me to get it before then.
I’m going to speak to my account manager to see if she can get me an £11k loan that’s cheaper than what the dealer can offer, not interested in PPE, I plan on keeping it for the rest of my life, (I’m 66, so if I keep it for fifteen years, like the Skoda, it will be until I can no longer drive!).
It’s £17,995, and I’ve got £7k from a tax rebate, so affordable.
I’d dearly love a new Puma, but the ST-Line is £26k or thereabouts, so way outside my price bracket; shame, as I had a Puma 1.7 Zetec years ago, in fact I had to sell it and get the Skoda, and I really miss it, but the EcoSport is a semi-auto, with paddles, satnav, reversing camera, DAB, heated screen, and 125bhp from the little 1.0 Ecoboost, so I’m really looking forward to driving a car with a lot more toys built in.
Good luck Sharkie, enjoy the Fiesta, they’re a lot of fun to drive, even in standard spec, the ST-Line ones even more so, so I can only imagine what the full-fat ST is like!