Is it only Fiat who make vital moving parts of the car out of plastic?

Short answer, no.

Ford for example make engines with a cam chain (good engineering). Then make the chain tensioner out of cheap plastic. Many (most?) inlet manifolds are plastic.

It's used wherever a bean counter thinks they can shave off a buck.

And Toyota have been making the cam chain sprockets out of plastic for a number of years, as my Brother discovered when his shattered...

Chris

Anyone remember the Mk3 and Mk4 Escort problems with stripping teeth on clutch pedals?

Can't remember if it was because a plastic ratchet was used, of if it was made of particularly crap monkey metal.

both bits were plastic, and it was a real pain to change the assembly.

Yes, I can remember lying upside down with my head in the footwell fixing mine!

Yup, did my bothers.

Fiesta has a clutch pedal issue. It's not held on by anything. Some people are fine but others seem able to just slide the pedal off at 1st go. Current theory is it's the bandy legged.

Mate has a cable tie on his. Seems it's the Ford approved fix.

Also if pedal moves sideways a bit (or too often) but doesn't fall off the push rod breaks it's clip, drops out the clutch cylinder and clutch stops working anyway.

Plastic.

At least they eventually did the decent thing, and changed to a manual adjuster!

Chris

after doing several I decided it was best to start by removing the driver's seat !!

BUT: they used the same plastic quadrant and pushed against it on the weakest side, so they broke completely.

Mine didn't; Essex must have some heavy-footed drivers ;-)

Chris

oddly enough the last one I remember changing DID have a great big lardy driver :)