Our "own" car reviews

Congrats Air, you've figured out that Japanese cars have fallen behind their European counterparts.

And I agree with the salesman. Try the 3-cylinder turbo. It is good in the Focus and I'd imagine it's perfect in a Fiesta.
 
AiR said:
the first thing that strikes me is the clutch is very light and so is the steering. My diesel Astra obviously has more clutch resistance and a bit more weighted feel to the wheel, however the Fiesta does not dissapoint in the driving dynamics.
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It's an Astra thing. As an ex Astra driver I had to get used to what I now know is "normal" resistance. I would have called it 'stepping on a marshmallow' before.
Only thing I've ever driving with a heavier clutch is a Ferrari F355 (no real way to compare it to anything else)
 
Perc said:
And I agree with the salesman. Try the 3-cylinder turbo. It is good in the Focus and I'd imagine it's perfect in a Fiesta.
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It really is. I had a 100hp 1.0 EcoBoost Fiesta as a rental few weeks ago. It's effortless in a city thanks to low down torque, and goes reasonably well on the autobahn considering it's modest output. 160km/h on cruise control was easy, but that's it. On a level ground it managed to do 184km/h on the GPS, on a downhill close to 200. And after two days driving like a... hmm, rental, it still managed to do 6,8l/100km. Lots of it was country miles, some urban driving and maybe 50% of it blasting on the autobahn. And thanks to being 3-cyl, it even sounded remotely interesting, which is something you can't say about many 4cyl turbos.
 
Lastsoul said:
And thanks to being 3-cyl, it even sounded remotely interesting, which is something you can't say about many 4cyl turbos.
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You can always tell yourself you're driving half of a V6! That's what I do anyway.
But it's true, a 3cyl does sound better than a 4 cyl (less is more)
 
Perc said:
Congrats Air, you've figured out that Japanese cars have fallen behind their European counterparts.

And I agree with the salesman. Try the 3-cylinder turbo. It is good in the Focus and I'd imagine it's perfect in a Fiesta.
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I had hoped they'd learn something, they at least installed the instrument cluster in the right position on the new Yaris! Sadly they sort of stopped there. Don't understand how you can mess up power and handling like that. And the rustproofing of the Yaris is quote: "astonishlingly poor". Ford meanwhile have built a special rustproofing line for Scandinavia in their German factories. Important for us saltdrenched people.

NooDle said:
It's an Astra thing. As an ex Astra driver I had to get used to what I now know is "normal" resistance. I would have called it 'stepping on a marshmallow' before.
Only thing I've ever driving with a heavier clutch is a Ferrari F355 (no real way to compare it to anything else)
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It's exactly like stepping on a marshmallow! Felt like I was going to go through the floor! :D

Lastsoul said:
It really is. I had a 100hp 1.0 EcoBoost Fiesta as a rental few weeks ago. It's effortless in a city thanks to low down torque, and goes reasonably well on the autobahn considering it's modest output. 160km/h on cruise control was easy, but that's it. On a level ground it managed to do 184km/h on the GPS, on a downhill close to 200. And after two days driving like a... hmm, rental, it still managed to do 6,8l/100km. Lots of it was country miles, some urban driving and maybe 50% of it blasting on the autobahn. And thanks to being 3-cyl, it even sounded remotely interesting, which is something you can't say about many 4cyl turbos.
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Sounds sweet, I'll try and find one for next weekend. The premium over the 1.25 is a enough to buy 700 liters of petrol at todays price though...
 
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AiR said:
The premium over the 1.25 is a enough to buy 700 liters of petrol at todays price though...
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Doesn't change the fact that the ecoboost is a marvel of an engine. :) Turbo ftw.
 
I'm personally looking at a Fiesta as a replacement for the Dart if it comes to that, but the 3-cyl Ecoboost won't be available here until next year :(
 
I loved the single-stalk on my W210 E320 back in high school. Definitely better designed than the single-stalk in my Fusion - when I have the wipers on in the Fusion and go to indicate I always turn them alll the way up or alll the way off. It's probably the most annoying thing about the Ford. Never had that issue with the Merc.
 
Many Autobahn hours later, some more thoughts on the MBB...

...why does a manual have a kickdown-esque button in the gas pedal? As far as I can tell, it does nothing whatsoever :dunno:
The car is unbearably slow. My Octavia's engine has identical peak powee and torque, but is MUCH faster. Weight and tallness :shakefist: you can see the tallness part best in the top speed - with the same power, the B180 is 13km/h slower.
The base audio system is quite decent though, once you get over seeing a nonfunctional GPS button and nonfunctional GPS menus both in the centre display and in the speedo display every day...
It's fairly comfy even for longer drives, but doesn't match my expectations for a 30000? car in that regard, considering all that cash is spent on the car itself with no expensive gadgets.
 
narf said:
Many Autobahn hours later, some more thoughts on the MBB...

...why does a manual have a kickdown-esque button in the gas pedal? As far as I can tell, it does nothing whatsoever :dunno:.
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an override for the cruise control? The wifes picasso als has a sort of step in the pedal when you floor it, ive found out it automatically cancels the cruise control.
either that or a safety/economy feature, as in 'are you sure you want to be doing this, i am a b class merc, not a racecar
 
narf said:
Many Autobahn hours later, some more thoughts on the MBB...

...why does a manual have a kickdown-esque button in the gas pedal? As far as I can tell, it does nothing whatsoever :dunno:
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Overboost for diesels and save money by fitting same pedal rack to all manual gear cars regardless of engine type? Or intentional resistance in pedal to provoke more economic driving like KIA Venga and some other Hyundai/KIA-models.

Also yay rental car lottery coming! Insurance company says to repair faulty ABS-pump, garage says between the lines that it won't work but they've been ordered to send it off. Lottery prices ought to be random Opel/Hyundai/Subaru car in "same class". So should be C-segment. Might be something else too. Wooo!
 
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Your suggestions concerning economy, safety or cruise control all require that the button actually does anything... Which it doesn't. There's no difference in consumption between before and after the button, that can be observed nicely in sixth at high speeds. If it were to give more power it'd have to use more fuel in the process.

As for production simplification, that's possible... But then I ask why not simplify the rear view mirrors as well? If you are going to fit it with mood lights and spot lights on all models you might as well fit it with automatic dimming on all models.
 
narf said:
Many Autobahn hours later, some more thoughts on the MBB...

...why does a manual have a kickdown-esque button in the gas pedal? As far as I can tell, it does nothing whatsoever :dunno:
The car is unbearably slow. My Octavia's engine has identical peak powee and torque, but is MUCH faster. Weight and tallness :shakefist: you can see the tallness part best in the top speed - with the same power, the B180 is 13km/h slower.
The base audio system is quite decent though, once you get over seeing a nonfunctional GPS button and nonfunctional GPS menus both in the centre display and in the speedo display every day...
It's fairly comfy even for longer drives, but doesn't match my expectations for a 30000? car in that regard, considering all that cash is spent on the car itself with no expensive gadgets.
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Lots of cars disable the air conditioning for extra overtaking power when you hit the "kickdown" switch.
And some (all?) Mercs have a speed limiter built into the controls for the cruise. You can set it to a certain speed, and it won't go faster than that in any gear... that is, until you hit the kickdown switch. It's a safety feature. I've driven a Vito that did just this. You turned the cruise into a speed limiter by pushing the stalk in towards the steering column. A little yellow light on the stalk came on.

NooDle said:
an override for the cruise control? The wifes picasso als has a sort of step in the pedal when you floor it, ive found out it automatically cancels the cruise control.
either that or a safety/economy feature, as in 'are you sure you want to be doing this, i am a b class merc, not a racecar
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All cars allow you to apply more throttle than the CC.
 
narf said:
Many Autobahn hours later, some more thoughts on the MBB...

...why does a manual have a kickdown-esque button in the gas pedal? As far as I can tell, it does nothing whatsoever :dunno:
Click to expand...

It is for the limiter part of the cruise control. Floor it past that point, and the limiter is canceled and the vehicle will accelerate past the set limit. My PSA rentals have the same function built into their cruise control.
 
I tried the limiter on a Vito once. Used it for a grand total of maybe 3 minutes before it pissed me off enough to turn it off.
 
It seems dealers in Swedenland are most fond of bringing in the 80 hp version of the "Ecoboost" 1.0 3-cyl for the Fiesta, which is NA and thus no boost at all. One more to test!
 
More first world complaints :lol:

The trip computer's range is too nervous. Setting off at my customer's today, it shows 182 remaining. 1km later after merging onto the a37, it dropped below 100 :jawdrop: 35km later at my hotel it's back up to about 130 :hmm:
Why even show single kilometers? It's suggesting precision that's just not there - who cares if you have 600 or 601 left?

This is the official place to store the first aid kit:



For a 30000? car, that's highly disappointing. The very same compartment in my Skoda doesn't contain exposed cables :dunno:
 
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