ok, i wanna take a car out on testdrive from the ford dealer locally tomorrow but dunno if you have to be over 21 or something?

 

i've never herd anything like you have to be a certain age but you might do

what car you going to take out?

 

they dont usually just let you take a car out withour getting a deal on the table for you to sign your life away

 

my mate is chinese, and he was test driving celicas and type-r's at 18!

helped him driving up in his moms new merc though

 

hopfully a zetec s mk5 fiesta i've seen on the forcourt. i know a mate of mine has literally tuned up at the vw garage and said i wanna test drive that one and away he went after he gave them his details. but unsure with a ford garage? i know most independent dealers you have to be over 21 or 24 to test drive the cars..

 

if you got the money to buy the car they'll let you test it - but don't try it on unless you are genuinely interested in buying

 

well, i didn't test drive it in the end as it was quite busy there & there wasn't a salesman about. it's a w plate with 30k miles in black up for 4295, however, i've been reading the rust horror stories on zsoc and i may have had a lucky escape tbh..

 

i was nosing around a Fiesta ST at my local Ford dealer and a salesman asked me if i wanted to take it out for a spin.

I think he just wanted to take it out for a roasting too though, also he was the guy salesman who sold me my mk5 Zetec-S. They do rust pretty badly considering how old they are. I have less rust on my S2 than on my old Fiesta lol

 

usually you can drive most normal cars but if you go to a high performance car garage you may find you have to be 25. I went to test drive an evo last year when I was 24 and I had to get my dad to drive it as the garages insurance wouldnt touch anyone under 25 as they had skylines supras etc..

Normal car like a zetec s you should be fine.

They rust quite badly as ford do very little in the way of rust prevention when theyre built.

 

i went to a garage, not a dealer of any kind though and i just asked for a test drive of this focus st170 they had at the time and they didnt ask me my age or for my licence or anything and i was 20 at the time.

P.s i had no intention of buying it though

 

My birds 51 plate ZS is mint, not a sign of rust anywhere. Infact, I've never seen one with rust.

 

NathR look under the door rubber towards the back of the door.

if you look on www.zsoc.com you will see that its a common spot to rust and 90% of ZS's ive seen have rusted there or had it repaired.

Mine was a Y plate and i had mine repaired by Ford under warranty.

 

My brothers 55 plate zetec s is rusting. You just have to look for the rust and you'll find it.

 

yeah, as i said earlier ive had a good read on zsoc and it seems most rust around the door aparture somewhere with some having rusty boot, rear outer arches & outer sills. it's all a bit shit tbh isn't it

 

Yep. It's ford's way of making sure you buy a new car. My brothers has been into the garage a total of about 7 times for different things and its only done 2000 miles.

 

Oh dear, I daren't look now!

 

Pull up the door rubbers and IMO theres at least a 50 chance of the sill starting to go

Mine is a clean as a whistle tho

Apart from that they are no worse than any other ford hatch, they tend to go on the rear 1/4 and under the back lights. I know there was a problem with one batch of cars that were overbaked, but these should have all been sorted under warranty

 

I've found a few patches on mine. the worst being under the seal on the passenger side and a a small patch below my rear light is begging to bubble.

 

my Wplate Zs started to rust on the N/S?r arch but then saying that it had a wank repair on the N/S so im guessing that the bodyshop it went to hadnt sealed the lip up on the inside of the arch,also i ripped all the sound deadening fluffy crap out from the inner 1/4panels,and the were damp which wasnt a good sign either!



but dont let that put you off!

 

Ni sign of any from the outside on the birds

 

2 people i know from my area have had their zetec s's done by warranty for rust lately. seems a common problem. im guessing theyre not galvanised like focus and newer design fords then?

 

The most common place is under the door seals, pull the rubber off, it's easy to get back on so dont worry, best catch it early, HOWEVER the 6 year warranty is only for PERFORATION so if there isnt a hole, which there usually isnt they wont touch it for repair under warranty

 

i didn't have a hole in my sill, just flakes of rust. i think it depends a lot on where you take it as some dealers are right little Hitlers about it but where i took mine they just sorted it without any hassle.

 

?

i've seen a few focuses with rust bubbling through/blisters about the size of a 50p coin on the boot floor of mk2 focuses aswell as sills/rear edge of front wing on these so don't think they are galvanised?

it's shit really as other cars from the same time don't rust, 306, vw polo/golf. you would have thought after twenty years of fords being renowned for having a rust problem they would have done something about it