New Ford Fiesta review (2013) – Hands on

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED – ECO WARRIOR
Even with traditional petrol-driven cars’, Ford is keen to reduce your impact on the environment by encouraging more earth-friendly driving styles. This will in turn improve fuel economy for the car owner and relieve stress on the engine, saving them any potential issues down the road. As part of this green push, Ford has brought EcoMode from the Focus and added it to the new Fiesta.

Eco Mode monitors your driving style and scores you with green petals based on your speed, anticipation and how often you shift gears. If you shift early, brake softly and keep your speed to a conservative average, new petals are awarded to indicate a change in driving style. If you over-rev the engine, regularly shift gears unnecessarily and brake heavily, these petals will be taken away. Once all five petals have been earned and a flower formed for each category, an achievement-style icon appears on the dashboard.

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Each new petal earned indicates an improvement

Such a ‘game’ might seem trivial, but it’s a simply way to monitor your driving style over a long period of time. The petals are consistent between journeys, so when you lend the car to someone and it comes back with fewer petals than when it left, you know they haven’t been driving with the environment (or your engine’s health) in mind.

The effects of good driving on fuel consumption can be as high as 30%, even for drivers that have been on the road for years and consider themselves safe behind the wheel. This can quickly add up to savings at the fuel pump, so there’s real incentive to pay attention to your performance.

FULL POWER
Environmentally friendly driving will only get you do far, both in terms of Saving the planet and fuel economy, which is why Ford will be bringing its award-winning 1-litre EcoBoost engine to the Fiesta for the first time in 2013. A One litre, 3 cylinder petrol engine doesn’t sound like it would set pulses racing, but the EcoBoost engine has a Turbo-charged trick under the bonnet. The variable valve timing, direct injection turbo charger produces the same torque as a naturally aspirated 1.6 block, yet stays environmentally friendly, producing less than 100g/km of CO2 – meaning it will be exempt from road tax.
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Small yet mighty – this engine feels very powerful inside the Fiesta

The engine itself is tiny, weighing significantly less than Ford’s previous generation engine, which helps keep the weight of the car down. Compared to a focus with the same engine, the new fiesta is nearly two seconds quicker from 0-60, proving how capable it can be in a smaller, lighter car. Although it’s not available to buy, Ford recently demoed a Formula Ford racer running one of these, and it was monumentally fast.

In practice, the engine feels like an ideal match to the fiesta chassis – it’s incredibly responsive and has plenty of torque, particularly in low gears, letting it comfortably reach motorway cruising speed. Of course, it’s best for city driving where it feels very responsive, showing little signs of turbo lag in first gear. We were genuinely surprised how aggressive the engine note sounded, which has apparently not been tweaked by Ford’s engineers in any way. From inside the cabin, you feel as though there’s a much larger engine beneath the bonnet when approaching higher RPM.

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Other drivers will be seeing this view a lot once the lights go green

Being designed for low revs, with very long gears, drivers are encouraged to shift up at 4,500rpm but it will reach as far as 8,000 at a push in first gear – it’s not recommended, for both engine maintenance and fuel economy, but we were impressed with its range all the same. We were also won over by the clutch, which we could feather comfortably without getting tired during city driving – it was easy to feel the engine through it, with a clear bite point that covered a wide range. For city driving, it’s a fantastic little engine that proves small can be mighty.

Over the page – the wrap up