Couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. Ordinarily I couldn't give a shiny one but I've been using it this week while he's on holiday.

Its is a 1.4i, its has about 129k on the clock and probably hasnt been serviced for more than a year. Being the kind soul that I am I thought I'd grab new plugs and an air filter, however the plugs made no difference and because I had to guess which filter it needed I got the wrong type, so thats a non starter.

I looked at the current one and its not too skanky.

When driving it appears to hit a wall in the revs at around 3500 - 4000, it refuses to maintain its momentum up hills and is generally very slow. More slow than when bought it.

It has some shit like insulation coming out the exhaust that looks like cobwebs.

I appreciate that this isn't a ford forum, but would anyone be kind enough to offer some suggestions as to the causes for such an issue? I've looked 'pon de internetz and the best I could glean was that the catalytic converters are prone to collapsing, could this explain the cobweb shit coming out the exhaust?

In exchange for mechanical information I will trade you knowledge of something I am good at, like science, cooking, DJing or building lego.

xx