New Ford Fiesta review (2013) – Hands on

THE STEREO THAT TALKS BACK
Ford sees the Fiesta as a “fun” city car, and so has put a lot of effort into its in-car entertainment system. Ford’s Sync in-car entertainment and control module makes its European debut in the 2013 Fiesta. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, the in-dash system uses voice control to simplify tasks that would usually draw your attention away from the road and give you greater control over your connected devices, as well as satellite navigation (which will be coming in the new year and unfortunately wasn’t available during our first drive with the car).

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The in-car computer can be controlled from the centre console, or through voice recognition

Its main use is for controlling music playback, from a smartphone, tablet or USB flash drive using the USB port recessed into the centre console, or via Bluetooth. Using a USB cable, Sync accesses your device and pulls a complete list of all your music files, building a database of searchable track and artist names using the ID3 tags saved to your MP3s.

It took less than a second to construct a database when we connected an iPhone filled with around 200 songs, after which we could choose tracks using voice commands. During our time with the car, Sync had yet to be updated to support more than 4,000 audio tracks per device, but Ford already has an update waiting in the wings to support larger media libraries. The car itself has no internet connectivity, so Fiesta owners will need to download updates like these from the Ford website and install them using a USB flash drive.

Of course, drivers can also use their connected phones to make calls using Sync’s voice commands. When pairing a phone over Bluetooth, it asks whether to download its phone book to the car, letting you call people by name rather than by number. If you have several passengers that want to play DJ, you can pair multiple phones for music but Sync will default to the master phone for making calls.

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You’ll need to enter a PIN to pair a Bluetooth device

Accuracy is crucial to any voice control system, so we were very happy to see Sync recognising our commands almost every time, even picking up foreign band names which were tricky to pronounce. One of the Ford demonstrators even rattled off an international phone number, speaking quickly and with an accent, which was picked up perfectly by the system. We tried the same experiment with both Siri and Google Now on two smartphones, but both required us to slow down our delivery to correctly pick up the full number. The only disadvantage is that you aren’t able to change how Sync recognises certain words – if you pronounce a band name in a certain way and Sync fails to detect it, you have to prompt the system to read out its ID3 tag so you can adjust your own pronunciation, rather than correct the system.

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Sync had no trouble picking out artists as we named them

Sync is compatible with all major handsets, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry OS and even Nokia Symbian, but you aren’t able to choose tracks by artist over Bluetooth – instead, you’re limited to simple play, pause, next and shuffle commands.

According to Ford, the voice control and steering wheel-mounted buttons could potentially reduce the time spent looking away from the road to change a music track on your phone from almost 30 seconds to virtually zero, helping drivers stay alert and aware of their surroundings while still giving them control over music and phone calls. We certainly found it useful when navigating the center of Rome, as we had to pay especially close attention to the local drivers in order to avoid returning the car covered in dents and scratches.

LIFE SAVER
Although it’s very much focused on fun, Sync is a lot more than a simple entertainment or communication system. It was also designed with driver safety in mind, as it can call for assistance if the car is ever involved in a crash.

The Emergency assistance mode uses any paired mobile phone to place an emergency call in the event of a collision, reading out GPS coordinates to the operator in their native language anywhere within Europe. Because it dials the internationally recognised 112 number rather than a dedicated Ford helpline, your smartphone will automatically search for any available signals across all network providers – this means that even in a tunnel you should still be able to get through to the emergency services when you need them the most.

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Remember to pair your phone – it could save your life

Unlike the rival On*Star service, which charges its American customers a monthly fee for a dedicated hotline, Ford’s Emergency Assistance is free for the lifetime of the vehicle because it uses your own mobile to place the emergency call.

Ford put the system through its paces during crash testing for the Euro NCAP safety exams, and are confident that it will still work even after an extreme collision. It’s located in a different location to the rest of the in-car entertainment system, and should your smartphone get damaged in the crash, it will scan for and connect to any previously paired phones with Bluetooth within range to dial for help. It’s a great system for peace of mind, although of course we’re hopeful that it won’t be needed by the majority of Fiesta owners.

Over the page – keeping young drivers safe and preventing crashes