Other half bought Fiesta... a few worrying discoveries

[fiestaryder]

My other half has just bought and collected a 2010 Ford Fiesta 1.25 [82] Edge from a Evans Halshaw Ford dealer with only 12,000 miles on the clock. (I know Evans H are generally bad people to deal with but the price was fair).

Now I have just managed to have a good look round it and I have made a few worrying discoveries under the bonnet.

The engine appears to be filthy and I do not know why. Could anyone explain the level of dirt in these pics?





Also I noticed the (excuse my lack of technical term) 'black circle things' are missing from each side of the engine bay:





I have gone all paranoid thinking there is the possibility this car has been in some sort of accident or driven into a river or something silly.

Evans Halshaw make you pay for a "compulsory vehicle check" when you buy the car (its basically a £100 con job for checks they should be doing on the car before selling it anyway), it does your usual checks for write offs, outstanding finance, accidents etc... So if it did turn out the car had been accident damaged then we could get our money back from them. So I am not too worried.

I am really just looking for possible explanations. I have seen many engines and none seem to be as mucky as this. Like I said its only done 12,000 miles, its practically brand new.

As for the missing 'black circle things' that is probably my biggest concern.

Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions.

PS: She has to go back to the dealers next weekend to collect something they are removing from her old car for her, so I plan on going with her and raising any concerns about the car she just bought.

[tonyk]

Why buy a car if you're unsure about these things? I would have check them out before buying the thing.

[fiestaryder]

Why buy a car if you're unsure about these things? I would have check them out before buying the thing.

Read it properly.

I didnt buy it, and your post is unhelpful.

[alan1971]

i know its not useful, i take it the women did'nt check the car over either before purchasing.

when you say black circle things, you mean the top suspension mounts?......if so they look normal to me.

[fiestaryder]

i know its not useful, i take it the women did'nt check the car over either before purchasing.

when you say black circle things, you mean the top suspension mounts?......if so they look normal to me.

She did check the car over as much as someone who knows little about cars would. And she was curious as to why the engine is so dirty, the sales guy just said "we dont clean the engines anymore because it might damage the electronics if we steam clean it".

Yeah the top suspension mount is what I was referring to but didnt know what they were until 2 minutes ago when I read your post.

I am used to them looking like this: http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/702/img0016i.jpg

I never stopped to think they might be different on a Fiesta, I have never looked under the bonnet of a Fiesta before.

Thank you for your much more informative post.

[tonyk]

Why buy a car if you're unsure about these things? I would have check them out before buying the thing.

Read it properly.

I didnt buy it, and your post is unhelpful.

You posted on an open forum and it will be helpful next time.

[JBROBB]

The suspension top mounts are normal, fiesta don't have the black pieces as shown in your link. Don't really know about all the muck, maybe it was Jsut driven a lot on dust tracks or a farm maybe?

[DGZS]

I've noticed with mine the fiesta engine does seem to get very dirty especially with all the crap weather we've been having, so if its done motorway miles or likes been said driven on unmade roads or farms etc

[fiestaryder]

Yes it appears I have nothing to worry about, its just my paranoid nature. At the end of the day I have bought a low mileage used car from a Ford dealer that they just serviced too. I suppose it would only take a few hundred miles on some unmade roads for the engine bay to get mucky.

I will just clean it up with some old rags and a bit of muc-off.

Sorted.

[bridgo]

ive just bought a 1.25 zetec from a local ford dealer called days in cardiff ,the car was cheaper than evans halshaw and was in mint condition.
i did go to two different evans halshaw outlets but to be honest their used cars were all dirty with scratches, marks etc a titanium i looked at even had silver overspray around a tyre where it had a refurb done on the alloys i was told they leave the cars in the condition they come in so the customer gets a true look before it gets valeted . first impresion is everything when buying a car. in my opinion i wouldnt buy a used car from evans halshaw.