Buying a WP/WQ....help appreciated

[Swordsman88]

Hi Fez owners!

I'm looking for any and all helpful hints and advice you guys might have RE purchasing WP and WQ Fiestas. As a 'Falcon' guy i admit to not knowing much about the Fiesta in a detailed sense (other than they were the best driving light cars in existance). I have done plenty of research on here and discovered some of the cars little issues but so far none seem to be too major. The car will be for my parents who will use it on a pretty highway-centric (70-80% above 80km/h) run in FNQld. They already have a Falcon so they won't be needing much space with the car being one up most of the time.

I do have a few questions which i'd love if someone could answer....

1. What are the differences between WP and WQ esp under the skin? I know zetec models got different gearing on WQ versus the base cars but what else esp interior/feature wise? Are their mechanical gremlins that were fixed on the WQ to make it worth the extra money?

2. For higher mileage cars, RE future maintenance what are the big ticket items? ie. i understand the timing belt is to be done at 150K? Is a Fez particuarly expensive to maintain given its 'euro' german built status? I am familiar with ford's locally built cars RE parts pricing but not the imported stuff....

3. Anything to look out for on test drives to indicate a problematic example and/or stuff i might need to fix?

4. Fuel burn wise i noticed alot of people get 6.5-7L/100km on highway runs? Would the WQ zetec get measurably higher burn on the highway given its shorter gear ratios? Based on my rough calcs it revs 10% higher given the diff in gear ratios in 5th??


I think the Zetec models will be a better choice since they have ABS and i'd like my mum to have that feature available esp in the wet weather they get up there. However with a lowish budget of $10k firm its pretty hard to find a wq zetec for that money, hence the WP might be a go.

Any help much appreciated guys and sorry for all the questions LOL.