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Ford Fiesta - Any Good?

lordofthereef

Android Expert
Nov 11, 2010
3,131
369
Some may have seen me complaining about a lack of fuel efficient cars in the US. Fords 40mpg line seems about the best we get.

Well, my girlfriend's Jetta crapped out. Needs a new transmission and a couple other odds and ends (I am not a car guy, so that's all you get, lol), so she is in the market for a new vehicle.

She wants something fuel efficient since she has a short highway commute to work daily. We were considering the Ford Fiesta. Anyone have one and like it (or dislike it)? I really only hear good things and the price is fantastic.
 
Well we test drove one and loved it. The only thing we didn't loved was the interior color, a sort of beige. Also, it's auto with some fancy name for "mor fuel efficient" package - she wanted a stick, but this is rated for 3 more mpg, so she is willing to live with it. The back seat is abyssmal. Luckily we don't plan on having kids less than five years from now, so the only thing populating the back seat will be our two cockers. For them, the back seat space is more than acceptable.

We weren't expecting to be offered much for my girlfriend car, but they offered 2k credit, which was about 400 over kbb trade-in, and we thought it was in worse condition than fair. They were also willing to knock off the delivery fee and all that extra BS. Seemed like a good deal to me. Should we expect to pay less?

We would have done it then and there, but I HAD to get back to town for work and this dealership was 25 minutes away. A refundable good faith deposit of $250 (we got it in writing) will hold the car for us until Tuesday when we can get back in. Not sure if it was TRULY necessary, but the guy said it was to legally hold the car, so I figured what the hell. I either get it back or they apply it to the down payment.

Anyway, we have until Tuesday to decide (3 days from the time of this post), but we are pretty sure we are going to pull the trigger.
 
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Ford Fiesta Road Test :D
Top Gear is actually what got me considering this car. I absolutely love Top Gear. Honestly I have always been of the stigma that Ford sucks. They did for a while during my young childhood (90's). I guess they are turning themselves around because I am hearing nothing but good things from them.
 
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So my fiance just called and hse picked up the fiesta of our dreams (almost). Our criteria was manual trans, hatchback, and cruise control. They didn't have any of those in the area, try as they might for weeks to get it. So... they offered us a fully loaded fiesta they had on their lot. I am talking leather heated seats/mirrors, MS Sync, the works, and they took $3,500 off the MSRP to get it sold. Only caveat is the color is a magenta metallic. Not ugly, but not manly, though this car is mostly for the lady. For the price, it was certainly worth it. They are taking a hit, but they had this car on the lot for over 90 days. I'll have pics up later tonight :)
 
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Firstly congrats, just tell yourselves the auto is an investment in resale value.

The magic of the one car on the lot that the New Car Manager thought would be perfect, but gets stuck on the lost for some unknown reason is great. It hits the magic number of 90 days and it's get rid of it time. It's the perfect storm of things that make a car sit there. I sold my mom a 438 day old Buick. It was loaded, but had the 6 cylinder instead of the 8. We sold it to her for 53% of MSRP.

Again, for my area we wouldn't take a deposit unless you special ordered, we did a dealer trade for the car, or it was the car that everyone had a hard on for. It isn't necessary, just a gauge of how serious you are. The willingness of a customer to leave a deposit was always a sign that 9 out of 10 times it was worth coming in on a day off.

In California we couldn't say a car was taken or on hold until there was some sort of paperwork on it. If someone was very serious the car was either stashed in service or some dark corner of the back lot. There was a dealer on the automall I worked on that got into trouble because they claimed their ad unit cars had been placed on hold. Some truth in advertising stuff.
 
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So my fiance just called and hse picked up the fiesta of our dreams (almost). Our criteria was manual trans, hatchback, and cruise control. They didn't have any of those in the area, try as they might for weeks to get it. So... they offered us a fully loaded fiesta they had on their lot. I am talking leather heated seats/mirrors, MS Sync, the works, and they took $3,500 off the MSRP to get it sold. Only caveat is the color is a magenta metallic. Not ugly, but not manly, though this car is mostly for the lady. For the price, it was certainly worth it. They are taking a hit, but they had this car on the lot for over 90 days. I'll have pics up later tonight :)
Maybe you could throw us a bone from time to time and describe certain aspects about it. Handling(feel of the wheel while driving at certain speeds,cornering,turning radius) ,can it get out of it's own way,comfort(I'm 6'2"),is it a quiet ride or rather noisy,functionality and placement of controls and switches,ease of being aware of your environment around you(major blind spots-normal driving,parking and backing). Any info would be appreciated.
 
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Maybe you could throw us a bone from time to time and describe certain aspects about it. Handling(feel of the wheel while driving at certain speeds,cornering,turning radius) ,can it get out of it's own way,comfort(I'm 6'2"),is it a quiet ride or rather noisy,functionality and placement of controls and switches,ease of being aware of your environment around you(major blind spots-normal driving,parking and backing). Any info would be appreciated.

We are going to be taking this car on a trip to California and back, which is roughly 1,700 miles each way. Should get plenty of feel for it and have some better answers.

Some questions I can answer now, however (keep in mind I am not a gearhead, I am just your average driver, maybe slightly above average):

The handling feels great. The car grips very well. Right now the only real test I have done is a couple full circle highway onramps. At the very least, I feel much safer going at higher speeds in those situations with this car than I did in the Jetta (00) and the ford focus we rented (10). You didn't specifically ask, but I can say that shifting is so smooth, anyone could do it. I am confident one needs no real knowledge of driving a manual to have a good time in this car.

I am also 6'2 and I have no problem getting in and out... of the front seats. As a passenger, with the seat all the way back, I can fully extend my legs (same is true being a driver, for the most part. Obviously there are those pedals there that you have to work with). I have never been able to do this to be honest, so that is great. The back seat will do in a pinch, but certainly not on long rides. Luckily, our two dogs will be the only other passengers 95% of the time I suspect.

AT cruising speeds it is very quiet. Now, I may be a little bias because what i KNOW very well is what a OO Jetta sounds like on the highway. First of all, cruising speeds (65-70mph) in that car are at 3,200+ rpm. This one is in the mid 2000's. The Jetta also had a minor air leak at higher speeds on the driver door. This made a whistling sound. You get none of this on the Fiesta (though I would be appalled if I did). They do claim that the windshield is a double layer with some other stuff (technical, I know) in between to deaden the sound. I believe them. I have been in various cars within this class (the Versa and the Aveo and my fiance has been in the Yaris). All of them are much louder. In fact, she mentioned when she took a trip to Minneapolis with work, they took a coworker's Yaris. She stopped trying to have a conversation (she was sitting in the back) with the rest of the passengers since it was so hard to hear over the din.

I am fairly sure blind spot mirrors are standard on this vehicle. If not, you have to be looking at something utter base because every vehicle I have seen has had them, though none of them were completely base everything. They actually work quite well. I got to drive the car back from the dealership (she left her Jetta there and we drove back to get it) and I had her test the blind spot. I could see her in my blindspot sideview before she disappeared from my rearview. Having mentioned the rearview, I have no complaints of the mirror itself. When backing out, the headrests can be in the way. Again, this may be a little bias, since we drove the jetta without rear headrests (I am not sure why, but I do remember thinking that was a good decision at the time). This could very well be something I just need to get used to again (or remove them like I had in previous cars).

Trunk space is quite a bit smaller on the hatch in terms of area. Vertically it is taller, and of course the seats fold down almost flat to get something much bigger in there if need be. This was the main reason we got a hatch (even in a sedan if the seats fold down we were hard pressed to get anything outside the shape of a ski in there, so it sort of defeats the purpose.) The trunk is going to be pure personal preference, so I will leave it at that.

Placement of controls is a little different. First off, we got the keyless model, so we literally need not take the key out to get in. We have been driving for 10 years, so needless to say this will take some getting used to. This isn't standard, and it honeslty isn't something we HAD to have, but as I mentioned, they basically gave us a ton of freebies to get the car gone and make the end of month and half year quota. Window buttons are in standard spots, so no complaints there. LOCKS are in the most ridiculous spot I have ever seen though. Perhaps it's just me, but it makes sense to have them on the door. NO... they are on the center console under your radio buttons (you should be able to see them in the pics - 7th pic down, right above the hazzard flasher button). Why on earth they decided to do this is beyond me. That seems like change for the sake of change. SYNC (which is one of the few options we REALLY wanted) is easy to use, works well, and surprisingly causes no echo or anything when making calls. The center display shows your phones battery life (if your phones support it, we use Android powered phones) as well as signal strength. We are big fans of pandora and you can even skip songs within pandora (or your normal player) by hitting next on the car radio. For those not technologically inclined (this is an Android forum, so I doubt that's the case) they even give you an MP3 player with some audio tutorials on it. They are cheesy as hell, but I am sure they will come in handy for some. Not sure what the storage space size is. I would imagine 2 gigs, and you can of course load your own music onto it. We have sync set up to hook up to the lady's phone as soon as she gets in the car. Simple and hassle free.

My last comment (for now) is the footprint of the car. It's quite a bit shorter than our Jetta; easily a a foot and a half to two feet. The compromise here is the rear leg room (and perhaps trunk space a bit). Admittedly, I wasn't very comfortable sitting in the back seat of the Jetta either. If you are ok sitting in the back of something in the same class as a Jetta with a decently tall fellow sitting in front of you, you will probably be fine with this.
 
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