No More British Driving School Cars!

Ford Fiesta Driving School Dual Controlled Car



I will never ever buy a british car again! A driving test was cancelled due to a fault with my 56 plate Ford fiesta driving school car which was on lease to me from the Hitachi Instructor centre in Leicester, the bonnet would not close.

Before the driving test, the pupil and I had gone through the show me tell me element, having a look at the engine compartment, identifying the parts the examiner might question her on, and all went well, with the bonnet shutting normally without any problems.

At the time of the driving test proper, we exited the test centre waiting room, walked to the side street where the vehicle was parked. The examiner asked the candidate to identify the engine oil dip stick and explain how it is used, which she did and then proceeded to close the bonnect, but it would not shut properly!

We spent almost 10 minutes trying to fix it with no success, so the test was terminated.



When I later took it to an approved ford dealer, I found out that a plastic fixing was known to move out of place which caused the problem! Why they used a plastic part at this particular position I don't know, but they said it was only a problem with driving school cars that frequently opened and closed the bonnet! The fix was simple, but I've had enough with unreliable vauxhall and ford cars, I'm moving to the toyota yaris for my driving school needs.

More Reading
Hire a car for driving test
Driving Test London Advice

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:13 pm

    Is the ford fiesta built in the uk, toyota have a car manufacturing plant in the uk as do nissan, both "japan cars" what is your definition of a british car.
    If you buy a toyota and have a problem with that what will you do, give up being a driving instructor and buy yourself a push bike. All makes of car breakdown sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:59 pm

    I think the ford is built in the UK. Although Toyotas and Nissans are built in the UK, their design is done in Japan. All cars breakdown, but from my years of driving experience Japanese and German cars are more reliable.

    My definition of British is where they are designed.

    No matter what, I'm not giving up being a driving instructor, this blog is my way of letting off steam, I was upset that such a trival design issue causde my pupil to lose out on the test

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:48 pm

    I think the problem is the Fiesta not the Ford. The Focus for example has been shown to be more reliable than any German or Japanese car! The Fiesta is a 'value' product, designed to be cheap!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous5:59 pm

    The Ford focus does have the persistent reverse gearbox problem which has been going on for about 5 years!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11:38 am

    Cars break... the fact it was british, a ford or anything else has nothing to do with it. It sounds to me like you've overreacted and are looking at the other cars with rose-tinted sunglasses.

    I've driven british cars for over 50 years as a taxi driver and only had one breakdown, and never a repair costing over £200 to fix. Hardly unreliable.

    ReplyDelete

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