Fiesta Brakes

the parking brake is probably a combo of badly adjusted cable (too tight and maybe a seized adjuster, a good clean out, slacken the cable off, press the pedal and listen to the adjuster click, take it for a short test drive and THEN adjust up the handbrake cable.

At the front the most likely fault is a seized caliper or pads, once again a clean out, grease up and rebuild will probably fix it.

Do the job on both sides of the car or you will introduce uneven braking too !!

Total cost probably nothing, both faults would have been found under good routine servicing.

Got to be worth a grand if it's in decent nick.

My Ka (same brakes and basic build as a 1.3 Fiesta) regularly produced so much brake dust that the calipers weren't moving freely. A wire brush, some brake cleaner and a blow off freed them back up. If that doesn't work, the next step would be to pull the calipers off, and either strip and rebuild them yourself (fairly simple - just launch the piston out with a blow gun pushed into the fluid inlet, and change the cylinder seal - the tricky part is fitting the dust seals, but it's not rocket science), or get a new caliper for £30.

It rained a bit too much last weekend, but managed to fix both brake problems just by giving them a good clean. Also fixed the exhaust, and it passed the retest today.

Thanks, David

Not sure anyone would pay a grand for it -- but the main problem was the exhaust, which required a new cat to fix. Ford wanted £350+ for the part alone. Managed to get the cat + flexi pipe for £170 off the internet and fit it myself, plus maybe £30 for various ancilliary bits & pieces, so £200 all in wasn't too bad.

Good, glad to hear it, many problems can be fixed without throwing a load of new bits at it. You used to be able to get a flexi pipe repair kit quite cheaply, I haven't fitted one for a while though.