Gadgetory

Ford smallest hatchback gets new styling and new tech let's take a look at the 2014 Ford Fiesta in 2011 Ford gave us the Fiesta model a subcompact it had sold around the world since the mid 70s now for 2014 we get an update it's mostly styling tech in the cabin not so much under the hood for styling they've added this larger front grille this is a lot bigger than on the previous generation and you can see it has very similar features to what you get on the fusion and the focus this grill gives them a common design language among their sedans and hatchbacks you see these big headlights lead out to the grill it was kind of big Mouse effect here and going back this car is definitely less curvy than the previous generation now this is the hatchback bottle you can also get this in a sedan but I like the hatchback a lot better it looks a lot cooler and it's much more practical now when I lift up the hatchback here I've got a little bit of space here remember this is a subcompact so lifting up the back there's a room for a few groceries back here but I can also throw down the rear seats back here and that gives me a lot more space I could probably make an Ikea run or something like that definitely fit a week's worth of groceries back here let's go under the hood and check the engine this engine carries over from the previous model it's a 1.6 liter four-cylinder puts out only 120 horsepower 112 pound-feet of torque it's not all that special all it's got his variable valve timing not much else but he gets this car 27 miles per gallon city 38 miles per gallon highway now the more exciting news is that early next year Ford's gonna come out with their one liter EcoBoost engine in the fiesta that's gonna be a 1 liter 3-cylinder engine and it's gonna put out 123 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque that's lower displacement but a lot more power than this engine how do they do it direct injection and turbo charging I here on the dashboard you see something you didn't see in the old generation of the Fiesta we have this big old pod up here this is a 6.5 inch touchscreen that's got the MyFord Touch system on it that's what Ford calls their in-car cabin tech interface in this titanium trim model that's standard we also have a Sony audio system you'd know that by the stereo interface here that's kind of unique to the sunny system you see that on some of the other cars to the fusion and the focus they have a similar thing if you get the titanium trim the Sony audio system has about eight speakers and it sounds pretty good the navigation system is my least favorite part of my Ford touch it doesn't work very well this this actually resides on an SD card in the console here it's a seven hundred ninety five dollars option and the problem with it is it renders kind of slowly I can see the map fill in as I'm driving which you don't really get with other systems other systems use something called dead reckoning where they fill in some of this information with your vehicle speed they know what road you're on so they kind of assume where you are this one because it completely freezes inside a tunnel or something like that there's an intersection in there it'll completely lose you and it won't be able to tell you where you need to go but voice command also works with this system and it actually works really well that's it's again one of the best parts of this car is if I want to put in an address I can say the entire string I can say the number the street and the city all in one string I don't have to put it in separate buckets like in other systems so this is a pretty advanced system as far as voice command goes problem is it just does not process too quickly of course the biggest problem with my Ford touch is that you can't get sync app link and my Ford touch in the same car Appling cos Ford's app integration system it integrates various app features into the interface so they're easy to use while you're driving and one thing they actually have is Scout navigation that's an app you can integrate to get a rudimentary navigation system kind of working with the car you don't get the big screen but you still get turn-by-turn directions and stuff and there's also more than thirty other apps that are integrated with app link but it works really nice and you don't get that in this version in the car with my Ford touch but enough about their like chronics here we've got the shifter for the 5-speed manual transmission that's the base transmission here I'd kind of like to see a six-speed here but Ford only gives us five gears the other option is a six-speed powershift automatic transmission but the manual and automatic can get about the same fuel economy so that's a toss-up like person like the manual it's fun to drive why don't we take this one on the road and check it out all right as you can guess with a Ford Fiesta with this 1.6 liter engine there's not a ton of power here you know I can slam the accelerator it starts to pick up but it's a slow wind-up this isn't a turbo it's not direct injection or anything like that so it's just not that fast I'm kind of surprised to find the transmission gate is really pretty sloppy it's pretty loose and sloppy makes for fairly comfortable shifting but it's just not a real precision instrument it really puts this car in more so that the suburban city runabout are one thing I have found though driving this car around some mountain roads having fun with it it does feel pretty responsive feels pretty nimble I like that in titanium trim this 2014 Ford Fiesta goes for just under $20,000 that's with the seven hundred ninety five dollar navigation option but my Ford touch comes standard in this titanium trim I would actually take a step down to the SE model that's 16,000 fifty dollars with the manual transmission now that you can get my Ford touch as an option but I would consider leaving it out because then you get sync app link and you can integrate that Scout navigation app so you get navigation plus all the other apps that Ford includes with app link