I just saw your post and what a small world that it was your car that the original poster bought. I will be turning 50 in a few months . Do you think someone my age should buy the fiesta? I red the other post about you mentioning that you had pain from driving it on your arm. I wish I would have seen that post before you traded it in because I have a few friends out in Southern California that have shops to customize your car. I live out here in Vegas and I could have told them about your situation and they would have been able to change the ergonomics of the shift on your car for a very affordable price. My friend said he has helped resolve the issue you have with your tendonitis for many of his clients. It is a very common complaint people have with newer cars and especially the Fiestas because the way the manual shifter is designed. One client he told me about had the exact same injury as you and was in a ton of pain as well after buying his Fiesta last year and after taking it in my friend's shop they realigned the shifter to the normal position that older cars have and it helped resolve his tendonitis immediately after he picked up the car.
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My issues were:
1. After the first few days my right arm on the tendon that runs from the back of the forearm from the wrist to the elbow was in intense pain. It came on fast. No indication of this in the test drive. After only a few days of driving the pain became unbearable. The tendon in my right arm was damaged when I was young from playing competitive tennis. Once the graphite racket era came, and I started using those rackets, they destroyed my arm. Now that tendon is sensitive to vibration. Any kind of high frequency metallic shock vibration, like the Fiesta Shifter has, will trigger it fast. Once it kicks in, it takes weeks to calm down. Funny thing though, I have only driven manual transmission cars my whole life so I never expected any car's shifter to cause pain.
The Fiesta does. It is the right frequency.
However, with the extended shifter and boomba knob wrapped in foam the pain in the arm started to lessen and maybe it might have gone away. But then...
2. Extreme pain and swelling in the left knee. For some reason the rest position of the left leg in the Fiesta is wrong. It causes the leg to twist the knee and put continual stress on it. After a couple of weeks I could barely walk. I tried adjusting the seat every which way with no relief. The ergonomics are not good here. Just when I thought I might be over the arm, the knee occurred. At this point i realized I made a mistake in buying this car.
3. The Recaro seats. I am a small slim guy so I could fit in the seats ok. But my friend who is bigger than me, really just normal size, was being killed by the passenger seat. The wings would dig into the backs of his shoulders and also the seat hurt his middle back. Finally he said he would never drive with me in that car again. He hated it and said it was the worst ergonomic design he has ever experienced. And he is a car guy, lots of cars in his life.
So for the three above reasons I could not live with the Fiesta ST. It was fun but the price to drive it was too high.
If you are 50, hell even 40, then I would forget it. It is a painful car, very stiff suspension. It is for weekend warrior work, not commuting.
If you will use it on the weekend as a second car then you might be good. But not as your main car.
I learned my lesson.
My new Mini is total luxury compared to the Fist. It is basically like driving in a BMW, but the Mini is fast, nimble and real torquey, much more than the Fist.
The Mini S stock produces 207 Pound/Feet at 1250 RPMs!
There is pull through the whole band from idle all the way to red line.
It is not peaky, it is torquey.
It is a totally different driving experience.
The Fist is raw and rough and that is a lot of fun. I did enjoy the car a lot, but it is for the young, or those rare older men who are still indestructible.
Hope this helps.