[Maximum]

Hey guys,

Noticed there's no a huge amount of Australian activity on here so I thought I'd kick it off a bit!

What sort of vehicle are you trading in or selling to get into your new Fiesta ST and what was also on your list to look at? What clinched the deal for you? For me I'm coming out a 2012 Hyundai Veloster Turbo which unfortunately was sloppy and thirsty in comparison to the Fiesta ST.

I was initially looking at the new Focus ST but with the reviews on the Fiesta, the much cheaper entry point with heaps of gear and with the invoked memory in the back of my mind about my old quick shoebox (1995 Suzuki Swift GTi), everything just stacked up and put in an order immediately after I tried it - actually just out of curiosity as I didn't think there'd be such a huge difference between two 1.6L Turbo hatches. But the Fiesta just sings, has more outright punch, handles incredibly with super-direct steering and is an amazing looking vehicle. No regrets! Just now need to wait out the factory order as I need to sort out a few little bits here and there before I get it. Gives me time to flick the Veloster and straighten everything out financially.

Excited!!

 

[MISTA FIESTA]

I've owned quite a few Fiesta's since 2004, and its just something about them that appeals to me. It was a waiting game of 2 years, from when my XR4 went to car heaven, to the pickup of the ST. Between that time my ears were open to any word if a replacement (ST) would come to Australia again. I loved the XR4 to death and at the time was the best car i have ever owned. It ticked all the boxes and kept a smile on my face 24/7. I would often perve on it through my bedroom window. Hehhehe. I didn't want a second hand XR4 and nothing else compared to it. As an A to B car, I bought a WT Fiesta Zetec which i still have. I didn't spend much money on it as there was no point modding it if it was to eventually be sold. It served its purpose.

When word was out earlier this year about the ST, I started saving my bum off. Regardless of price, I just had to get it. As the date of release got closer, I started panicking.... Would the ST be everything I want? Will it give me the same joy as the XR4?. I started thinking about other options of the likes of : Fiat 500 Abarth, Pug 208GTI. Renault Clio RS. Each were ruled out/dismissed for various reasons respectively. I eventually got to get up close and personal with a White ST one week before official release. I looked, touched, poked, rubbed anything and everything of this car, but as it was already sold, a test drive was out of the question.

At this point my mind was going haywire. I left the dealership with a somewhat disappointed feeling (No sat nav, no leather seats, no sports pack). Everything changed once the reviews from Europe started hitting the web. I read every review, watched every youtube clip i could find with the conclusion that everyone loved it and it is the new benchmark for Small Hot Hatches. Even after watching the Top Gear Segment, I still was 50/50. I said if i can get a test drive of one i will know right there and then if its a yes or a no.

Managed to get a 10min test drive of one and the rest is history. At that point all doubts and previous dissapointment was gone. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" was where my head was at. Did the deal a week after release and have no regrets. The ST is now the best car I have ever owned.

The way I put it is this:
"The XR4 was raw. It wanted you to rev it out till it was screaming, it wanted you to take corners at higher than recommended and still asked for more with no hesitation. In return it gave me absolute fulfilment everyday of ownership. The ST is a more refined version/update with everything the XR4 offered multiplied by 100." A good man once said "if you park your car, walk away, and look back and smile... you made the right choice". I cant stop looking at it.

Apologies for the essay.

 

[olympicwiz]

I owned Porsche 911 Carrera S MY06 and before 911, I had Mini Cooper S. Must say I always missed the zippiness so to speak of the Mini. Particularly around town. But Porsche was an amazing car nevertheless.

Later I got a motorbike and started using it primarily as my means of transportation. So easy to park, so quick to get anywhere and lots and lots of fun. So as the result could not justify keeping (and upkeeping) the aging 911 with the insurance and service costs are much more expensive than with a regular cars so sadly, it had to go.

But I still needed a car for when it rains and when I need to be in the city wearing civilian clothing etc etc. So as the second car I allocated $30k budget and wanted to get something zippy and reasonable in terms of fun.

I initially auditioned the new Suzuki Swift Sport and it was really underwhelming to drive, but then most cars are underwhelming after you hop of the motorbike to drive.

Then I had a look at the newly released Renault RS200 and whilst it is a very nice car to drive, it was not offered in a manual form and the level of the equipment in the base model was extremely limited. To get to the Fiesta ST's standard of the equipment, an optional trophy pack of $5.5k was needed bumping up $32k price by almost 20%!

So Fiesta ST ticked just about every box except the lack of SatNav. Thinking about hardwiring SatNav to the ignition and leaving it permanently in the corner. The other thing I want to investigate is getting a better sound. Just got back from the dealer driving it back and what a great little drive it was!

 

[was-an-M]

Take a look at this thread too... http://www.fiestast.org/forum/fiesta-st-discussions/241-what-cars-people-coming.html

But I've had, in this order:

1994 Mazda Protege, 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, 2001 Honda S2000, 2008 VW GTI, 2009 BMW 135i, 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid + 2005 BMW M3, and now my 2014 Fiesta ST. There were also 2 motorcycles in there.

 

[Maximum]

Wow some awesome stories in here!

@Was-an-M: I did see that thread after I made this but I made this as an Australian specific one.

On my side of things, I started with my first "sporty" hatchback several years ago when I bought a 1995 Suzuki Swift GTi. Little shoebox with a slightly hotter engine than the standard carby but by no means a hot hatch (not really even a warm hatch really) and I loved the dynamics and the comraderie on the road. Unfortunately it was written off on the highway after someone locked up their brakes and went into me. So then I was looking around and I noticed the new Hyundai Veloster which, when looking at specs it seemed to have a similar power to weight ratio and I, mistakenly unfortunately, assumed it would be similar to drive. I was wrong and while I loved the tech and absolutely loved the Sunflower Yellow colour I parted with it for the Turbo version a year later. I have never been 100% satisfied with the Turbo version either with too much body roll, build quality is a little questionable now that I've had it for a while and am seeing new rattles and buzzes and all in all is an unsatisfying car to punt around. It feels like 8/10ths power wise too. Never satisfies quite enough, just needs that touch more.

Enter the Fiesta ST. I was dead set on a Focus ST but was teetering on the edge due to price. I wanted to jump out of the Veloster to cut down on what I financed. I had dismissed the Fiesta initially as it didn't have the more powerful engine, camera, satnav or xenons (xenons was my only real dealbreaker) until I started hearing the reviews. On a whim, I decided to get my dealer to humour me with a test drive out of curiosity. I was astounded. I thought there wouldn't be enough of a difference to justify getting out of one 1.6L Turbo hatch to another but everything about it was tighter. Much more direct and less sloppy steering, laugh-out-loud dynamics with a few very minor rear end kicks on the test drive, more satisfying power and delivery and the absolutely awesome seats. I got back and immediately went into negotiations. They let me walk that afternoon as the dealer principal didn't want to discount it a cent but I gave them an ultimatum the next morning and offered a slightly higher price than I saw on carsales at another dealer and said this was a loyalty offer due to them doing the work. They relented and I had signed papers to them in the next hour. Now I'm waiting until May next year due to my condition it had to be a 2014 build and complied vehicle.

The wait begins - sorry for the wall of text as well!

 

[Chestinator]

Started off in the families white VL bommadore auto - gave the parents $1000 for it so couldn't complain. Good fun but was a bit of a death trap around wet roundabouts even at low speeds. Kept things interesting thats for sure. Guy told me "you can balance a cup of coffee on that engine mate" and I was like "err cool..."

Second and current car is my blue 05 Fiesta Zetec - bit of a beast. I've learnt to love it over the 7 years. Great handling and goes pretty hard. People have always said its a girls car and I even missed out on a um "scoring" opportunity one night when the girl saw the car and was like, "is that your car?" The kok blocking friend with me at the time didn't help either.

Anyway after a few years of therapy (not really) I love my current Fiesta and defend it to the hilt. I'd been window shopping cars for ages spending a bit of time surfing carsales on nightshifts etc. I went through the whole "60K car is in my price range" phase about a year ago but never committed thank god. So at the time I test drove all the usual suspects in that price range like the Megane, WRX, 370Z, GTI etc. Great cars but was too scared to pull the trigger.

Fast forward to now and i've managed to save a bit of money and it's funny the more you save the more you don't want to spend it. My sis is needing a cheap car for a new job so i'm selling my fiesta to her for $4000 which mean't I could finally (kinda) justify buying another car. So I set myself a budget of 30K and set out to find a car. Looked at second hand 370Z's, Skylines, but they were a bit out of the price range. Test drove the new Clio RS 200 which was good fun but like you guys the price for the model with decent inclusions + no stick shift = no deal Eddy. Drove the Skoda Fabia RS (cheap for a reason), wanted to drive the Veloster T - none in stock (suprise suprise) and a FiST that wasn't already sold would get to Canberra around April/May next year. WTF. Oh and WRX was on the cars but too much fuel and second hand ones you didn't know their history.

One of my searches came up with a Mini JCW 2008 at a dealer here - a car I never really considered. Was so close to buying it after a couple of test drives was bloody good fun. Did a last 'due diligence' search on the net before buying it the following day and it was non stop reliability issues namely the infamous (apparently) 3-4K clutch problems that they have had for the last 10 years - class action lawsuits, the works. Add to that BMW pricing for services/part etc and the fact it was a 2008 year old car I chickened out. Still need to call the dealer back and give him the news.

Now the funny thing is after every test drive I would jump back in my little Fiesta Zetec and think wow even after driving cars with twice the power and all the trimmings I still love driving this car. So I started ringing around the Sydney dealerships for a FiST and found only two for sale, a blue and a black one with all the other dealers saying May-ish for the next lot. Long story short I'm going through a salary packaging company and buying the blue one and looks like another guy on this forum has brought the black one. Haven't even seen one in the flesh but all the reviews + bang for buck + the reliability of my current Fiesta = don't have to drive it, I wants it.

Think I might have beaten you guys in the wall of text competition...

 

[Comfortablynumb]

Gday folks;

First up I should point out that the FiST belongs to Mrs. Numb.

The list of cars she/we have owned is far too long to list in entirety so I will just go with the last one that was HER car. A 2006 Hyundai Getz. No speed machine of course but still an excellent vehicle for what it was. It was designed to do a job and did it very, very well. Still and all, what with the wife's penchant for road raging plus her frustrated V8 Supercar persona, well, it just wasn't cutting the mustard. Kinda hard to road rage against Clubsports and XR8's. Not that the lack of mumbo stopped her from trying.

"So what is YOUR car then? " I hear you ask. Well, I drive a Focus ST.

Ahhh.....the penny drops.

For my money, the Focus is a far better car. Much more roomier. Better fitout of gadgets and widgets. The indicator stalk is on the right hand side !!!! (WTF Ford ? Couldn't you sort that one out in the Fiesta?). I prefer the seats in the Focus, Mrs. Numb prefers the Fiesta seats. The power difference is quite noticeable, as is the weight difference.

The FiST gets better fuel economy of course. In fact Mrs. Numb reckons she spends less on fuel in the Fiesta then she did in the Getz. She puts some of this down to not having to push her right foot through the floor and bounce the valves through the bonnet in order to keep up with those Clubbies . Geez, she used to wring the neck of that poor old Getz. The Fiesta just does it so much easier

Dealerships......hmmmm.

Went to the same dealership we bought the Focus from earlier in the same year. Completely different team, not one familiar face. Asked for a good price on the Fiesta seeing as we bought a new car from them already. They said they would look after us. When it came time to put numbers on the table the offer was standard list price for the Fiesta and $500 trade on the Getz !!! $500 ???? FFS....the tyres and rego were worth that !! See ya later mate.

Shopped around a bit and ended up with $2000 off list price and $4000 trade. Had to drive clear the other side of town to get that but what the hell, it's only a half hour drive.

To make things worse for the first dealer, they continued to pester us with continuous phone calls (no improvement in offer mind you) and then abused us for taking their "offer" and shopping it "around town". Really ? So we were just supposed to take the first offer ? Wankers.....

Mrs. Numb loves her ST

 

[Chestinator]

Haha your misses sounds like an angry one - she'd fit in well here in Canberra Shit drivers aplenty for her to rage on.

Focus ST is definitely a nice car and good value for sure. I like the FiST coz it's easy to park, corners like crazy, easy on fuel and it's light. I don't have kids so I could almost live without back seats. If the kiddy situation was to change i'd focus it up for sure.

Dealers are a funny lot, I had a good one in Sydney at CityFord named Craig. They say the best deal is one where the dealer thinks he ripped you off and you reckon you got a good deal. Whatever the truth is doesn't really matter How dare you shop around for a good deal. What a knob.

 

[Maximum]

Anyone want to throw up pictures of their previous ride? Here's mine I'm stuck with for the next couple of weeks.

 

[MISTA FIESTA]

 

[Maximum]

Holy hell that is a fair few Fiestas! This will be my first ever Ford - I've never had one so I hope I have a good experience. Have had 2 Suzukis and 2 Hyundais.

 

[ijp71]

G'day all,
Purchased a 2013 Molten Orange ST about 3 weeks ago. It's an ex demo that had 2000km's on it, but we got a really good price for it and for our trade in of a 2010 Fiesta Zetec. Would have liked a 2014 model, but the ST's are so hard to come by in Australia because the Europeans keep buying them, so Ford are sending less and less to Australia. When i started looking a months ago, there were actually only 2 for sale in Melbourne. All the others advertised were not in the country and the dealers were wanting deposits on cars that weren't here and they couldn't give me a date as to when they would be here!!! It's supposed to be my car because my wife let me get it if i gave up riding motorbikes, which i'd been thinking of doing after a few accidents and close calls over the years. But she loves it, especially the Recaro seats which hug her sore back.......so i don't get to drive it as much as i'd like!!! Our other car is a 2008 Volkwagen Jetta turbo diesel, which is a great family car and it has a huge boot.

I'm showing my age now when i list all the cars i've had (i'm 43). First car was a Datsun 180b, which was my mums car and my parents gave it to me for my 18th birthday. Then i discovered Rotary power and had a Mazda R100, 2 Mazda Rx3's (1 that i used to race in club cars). But as much fun as the Rotaries were, they were also a bottomless money pit...so i switched back to conservative 'piston power' and bought a Nissan Bluebird. Then came a Ford Laser and after that a Hyundai Lantra and finally the Volkswagen Jetta.

I also discovered motorbikes in my mid twenties and had a Kawasaki gpx250, the a 2 stroke KR1s 250, then a Yamaha YZF600 and finally 2 Yamaha YZF R1's with the last one being sold in order to get the ST.

Sorry for waffling on!!! If there's anyone from Melbourne here who alos owns an ST, let me know and maybe we can catch up for a drive!

 

[roboBOiTO]

Tge first car I bought when i waz on my Ps was a 93 magna, It went to 375000ks till my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) blew the engine up lol. I had an Evo6TME for a time, then bought a 12 ralliart lancer. I never intended on buying a new car so soon.

One day ouy of the blue, my little brother convinced me to go test drive some Fords. We had a drive each of the FoST and FiST. Didn't really like the FoST, but I fell in love with the FiST. Remembered how fun it was to drive a stick. Sold the ralliart, ordered my FiST a fortnight later.

 

[aln]

If there's anyone from Melbourne here who alos owns an ST, let me know and maybe we can catch up for a drive!

What area are you from? I'm in Mulgrave but always drive to the city for work and I wouldn't mind catching up with other ST owners

 

[jayroddrumz]

Hey guy s just saw this today. I know I'm not in Australia, but thought i'd join in if that's ok. I got my FiST a little over a month ago. Coming off of a 2006 Evo MR. Had it tuned on E85. MAking 360/382. hp/tq. not the most powerful, but a lot of fun, and quick for the little bit of work that was done to it. I too like many others on here was initially looking into a FoST. Drive a couple, like it, but didn't love it. Drove a friends FiST at a local Autocross. I loved it immediately. Reminded my of my older Civic Hatch, but with some balls! So i got rid of the EVO and picked up my 2014 FiST. I do miss the raw grunt power of the EVO, but I do not regret my decision. Love driving this little thing. Got enough power to not be boring, but it can handle with cars that are way out of its class!
From the old,
to the new!

 

[mattpwr]

I am currently in a WRX. But the ride before that was a 2007 xr4 that I had supercharged. Made 170FWKW and was a blast to drive. The WRX in comparison is dull. I cant wait to get in a small ford again. Should hopefully be in one by the end of next month

 

[raysl]

What area are you from? I'm in Mulgrave but always drive to the city for work and I wouldn't mind catching up with other ST owners

Picking up my ST on Saturday. Definitely keen to meet other ST owners.

 

[scottye]

Never used to care what car I drove, so ended up driving what I learnt on for many years. Going from a 96 Festiva to a FiST was huge. Picked mine up back in Sept 2013, saw it on UK Top Gear and instantly wanted one. Just lucky I guess that my friend landed a sales manager job at Rockdale Ford around the same time.

 

[dubtastic]

Anyone want to throw up pictures of their previous ride? Here's mine I'm stuck with for the next couple of weeks. View attachment 423

Sadly, these little guys are just not that popular in the States. Unfortunate because they looked to have great potential.

As far as previous autos. I've run the gamut of MK5 and MK6 GTI, Mazdaspeed3,

 

[kvetcha]

Sadly, these little guys are just not that popular in the States. Unfortunate because they looked to have great potential.

As far as previous autos. I've run the gamut of MK5 and MK6 GTI, Mazdaspeed3,

There are a surprising number of Velosters, Turbo and otherwise, floating around the DC Metro area. I imagine that sales vary a ton regionally, as with many imports.