Ford Fiesta 1.0 Litre EcoBoost Titanium

Following a bin lorry kindly reversing into the side of our car, I was offered a hire car for the morning whilst repairs were being done on our own vehicle.

The car they gave me was the 2017 1.0 Litre EcoBoost Ford Fiesta with Titanium trim. It’s quite a bit smaller than our Volkswagen Touran but as we only needed it for the morning, that was no real issue.

First impressions of the Fiesta

Being the Titanium model, the spec certainly wasn’t lacking – CD player, climate control, cruise control… But that’s pretty much where the fun stopped.

Probably the best thing about the car was that I only needed to keep it for the morning.

Take the driving position, for example. At 5′ 10″ I’m certainly no giant but I just couldn’t find a comfortable driving position. The steering column is ‘adjustable’ but only moves from digging into my legs to just hovering above them.

Then there’s the engine. The engine in this car is the petrol 1.0 litre EcoBoost. It’s a three cylinder engine and to be fair, is fine around town and probably delivers fantastic fuel economy. It just felt gutless to me though and sounded more like a diesel engine than a petrol. As a town runaround it great but I’m not sure it would be great for a quick overtake at speed on the motorway.

Centre Console

The controls aren’t brilliant either. It’s great that there’s climate control and DAB radio but it just looks and feels like the manufacturer sneezed buttons over the centre console. The positioning just didn’t seem intuitive and button sizing isn’t distinctive enough to quickly find key controls.

There is a basic trip computer, however, instead of the control to cycle through the various stats being on the steering wheel, it’s a button at the end of the indicator stalk instead.

Conclusions

Overall the Ford Fiesta is fine. It’s got everything you need for everyday town driving, albeit not necessarily immediately findable, and it was handy to have the car for the morning whilst ours was in for repairs. Next time though, I’ll probably just get the bus…