I've always been a small car buyer - not a car nut, don't associate my self-worth with what car I drive, and thus have zero interest in expensive and unreliable Euros (having learned a harsh lesson along the way with a VW Polo was also a sobering experience). Whilst I am perfectly aware that buying new cars aren't economically efficient, I will always prefer buying new. I just don't want other people's problems and just expect the car to give me problem-free motoring of between 3 to 7 years (7 being the max). Then I move on to the next car. The purpose of this background is to illuminate why I found my experience of owning a Ford Fiesta which I bought brand new so unsettling and why I'll never touch a Ford again.

Bought the car at the end of 2010 and even bought an extra two years of warranty following my 4 years of VW Polo ownership nightmare. The dual clutch automatic had some of the well-known/loathed characteristics of being a bit jerky at slow speeds although on my one it was very occasional only. But it otherwise was a very fun car to drive, especially out on the open road.

So what's the point of this thread, you ask? Let me tell you the first horror:

1. Absolutely horrendous servicing costs

I am not kidding you, the first service at John Andrew Ford cost close to $500 and that was 2011 (I think I had change of about $30-odd dollars). JAF was also the first -- and still only -- company that behaved so abysmally as to motivate me to make a complaint to the Commerce Commission. They dared to charge some $15 for oil disposal (umm, hi, it's your obligation to comply with waste disposal laws) and, more egregiously, represented this as some kind of "levy" cost which they were legitimately passing on. The CC issued them with a compliance letter telling them to actually warn people of such charges in advance whilst doing nothing about the misleading implication that the word "levy" created.

Since then I have found that servicing the car at either JAF or the other AHG-owned Ford dealer, North Harbour Ford, routinely attracted annual servicing costs that exceeded servicing costs of equivalent Euro cars, let along similar Japanese brands. And if anyone knows anything about Ford's servicing schedules -- the work done on the car is usually extremely minimal.

2. Oh the rattling and low quality parts

By the car was about 1 year old, the interior started to give off endless rattles. I'd complain whilst the car was under warranty at servicing, and either JAF or North Harbour Ford (depending on from whom I preferred a reaming at any given year) would claim to have tightened some things, and then the rattling would come back with a vengeance later. Almost every years I would have been replace the windscreen wiper because, not only does it make a horrendous grinding noise every time a month or so after I get a new one, by the time the wiper is more than 6 months old, it would fail to wipe my widescreen without leaving streaks.

Oh and don't get me started on the peeling interiors.....

3. Sure the car was broadly reliable mechanically until it nearly started a multiple nose-to-tail 

For the nearly 6.5 years and nearly 70Ks I drove on the car, it was very reliable (unlike a VW polo which I gave up on and traded in after 3 years and 25Ks) until I was driving around one day in the CBD going at about 53 KPH and the car just suddenly lost power completely and the console started flashing "Transmission problem. Service Now" (or words to that effect). It was only a minor miracle that the car behind me didn't rear end into me and causing a cascade of crashes. To cut a long story short, I initially took it to a friendly local garage thinking that it wasn't worth my while to try and diagnose it at a Ford dealer out of warranty (I had already decided that I would trade in the car once it was fixed and get something else). Friendly garage/their matey electrical specialist announced they couldn't diagnose the car and waived all charges, so I had the car taken to North Harbour Ford. And what followed just takes the cake.

4. The joys of Ford's "extended warranty". Or was it?

A day after taking the car to North Harbour Ford, they advised that "Oh your car is ready to collect and it's all good!". I was actually quite amazed as I made it quite clear that I would only pay their set fee for examining the car and that all repair work had to be authorised by myself as I was concerned about exorbitant costs that are out-of-kilter with how much the car is worth. "Oh no, don't worry. We just applied a computer update as there was a recall on your issue and this should have been addressed previously!". I had been having my car serviced at JAF for the few years prior and was of course concerned. So I rang JAF and challenged them on whether they had performed all recall-related updates etc and they said there wasn't a recall on my car.

Fast forward to a Saturday and I go off to collect my car (by this point I had already agreed on buying a Mazda 2 with a guesstimate on the trade-in value of my vehicle, subject to a dealer's viewing), I asked NHF what they actually did to fix my car. This time the story was different -- they just reprogrammed my transmission (they again emphasised that the work was free) and the service advisor joyfully advised that "Oh people have been having a lot of problems with these dual-clutch transmissions. Ford has extended the warranty to [she fluctuated between 8 years to 10 as the conversation went] years and what we do when people have problems is update their transmission computer first, then we'll replace the clutch if the first step doesn't work, and if things still aren't fixed, Ford will replace the whole transmission!" (let's call this the 3-step routine). I explained to her that the car's failure almost caused a multiple car-crash and she just didn't seem to get why I was concerned. NHF also declined to provide any written record on what they actually did to my car.

On many levels I no longer cared about this car and only needed it to last long enough for me to trade it in. But intrigued I rang Ford the following week, which denied there was any kind of warranty extension and that "most likely"  the car was fixed as a gesture of good will. Boy, if I wanted to keep the car, I sure would have been assured given that I have no firm understanding of what was wrong with it and where I stood in the future. So I did a bit of online digging and these transmissions have actually been an absolute nightmare and are the subject of class lawsuits in the US and Australia. Incredibly, many people have reported actually having to endure the first two steps of the 3-step routine before the transmission was replaced, with free near-death experiences along the way.

In conclusion

Given what I've experienced, and what I have since found out from colleagues who owns/owned Fiestas and Focuses of between 2011-2013 vintage (mostly identical experiences), and Ford's infamous decision to deliberately strip out many essential safety features from the current model Mustang (leading it to become a 2 star rated safety crapbox in crash tests), I can only conclude that I will never again touch a Ford. Perhaps this is a lesson that many already know but if it helps someone in one way, this post would have been worth it. Their current offerings are also just out of touch with their competitors in terms of pricing, specifications, and warranty terms.