Thirsty Ford Fiesta punches above its weight

So much so that my wife, Andrea, went out and bought one before I even got my test car! There wasn’t an auto offering in the pre-facelift range, so having the option now to go auto is a big plus for people who sit in traffic most of the day or just for people who couldn’t be bothered to change gears.

And it is not an old school five or four speed auto as regularly offered in this segment. It is a seamless perfectly shifting state of the art double clutch unit that is found on big brother Focus and the likes of the Polo GTI and Golf GTI.

I really enjoyed the drive this box offered and I thought it worked very well with the punchy 1.0 litre turbocharged engine. Unlike where it is fitted to the 1.5 litre naturally aspirated engine in the Ford EcoSport that sees the compact SUV constantly hunting around for gears even when driven on the highway, this combo sees the car simply holding the gear and riding on the 170Nm wave of torque on offer from a mere 1400rpm to 4500rpm.

Dropping the lever into Sport mode sees the 74kW of power that is made at 6 000rpm result in decent sprint times. Although this is not this car’s forte, it only ran a fraction slower than the old 1.6 naturally aspirated manual transmission car it replaces.

By the way: it did still get to 100km/h in just over 11 seconds, the quarter mile in just under 18 seconds, the 1km mark at around 160km/h while going to a top speed of 193km/h.

Smaller does not mean slower, especially up on the Reef where the lack of oxygen robs a bigger capacity naturally aspirated engine.

The 1.0 litre EcoBoost engine uses technologies that include direct fuel injection, turbocharging and variable valve timing to deliver this power of a larger engine with the claim of fuel efficiency of a smaller engine.

Where it fell completely flat was fuel consumption. The claim for this car is an excellent average of 4.9 litres per 100km – but the best I could get was 7.9 litres per 100 km. Remember average means combined town and open road driving. I couldn’t even get the average to 4.9 litres on the open road and should you drive more around town you won’t even get the 7.9 litres I eventually managed.

For what it is worth my wife’s car is sitting in the high 8.0 litre bracket now after being in the 9.0s after the first few fill-ups. This is a problem as 95 octane fuel currently costs R13.96 a litre on the Reef – and now you will be paying at least R41.88 extra for every 100 km you drive, based on my figures in your Fiesta over and above what you thought you were going to. This amounts to over R40 000 in a simple 100 000 km life cycle of the car before taking into account petrol increases over the years to come.

You would think you could take this problem up with Ford SA – but you can’t because they post the following disclaimer: “Fuel economy and emission figures obtained from controlled tests on a combined cycle in Europe. Note that the actual fuel consumption and emission will depend on many factors including your driving habits, prevailing conditions and your vehicles equipment, condition and use.”

So just like with most other manufacturers, Ford SA relies on their international quoted figures. These extensively controlled test figures are derived most of the time without a car actually being driven on the road, but merely gleaned from a computer simulation – and are not representative of a real world situation and should be addressed by the manufacturers.

It is not the end of the world though, as there is more to this Fiesta in terms of fresh styling and feature enhancements.

But it is something you should be very aware of. My wife for one is not fussed as she has a company petrol card, but it was something that set off my alarm bells.

The Fiesta 1.0 EcoBoost Trend PowerShift comes in at R230 800 and is available with a fully comprehensive 4 year/120 000km warranty, 4 year/60 000km service plan, 3 years of roadside assistance and a 5 year corrosion warranty.

Would I choose it over its spec rivals like the Peugeot 208, Citroen C3 and Honda Jazz? Yes, it is the more modern package of the lot, but the cheaper but older technology spec Hyundai i20 and Kia Rio offerings should not be ignored if you are under pressure to get a car under R200 000.