Gadgetory

this one liter water bottle shows how much displacement you find in the cylinders of this 2014 Ford Fiesta this is the 2014 Ford Fiesta you can see this big mouth grille which is sort of a signature item on Ford passenger cars at this stage in the game this is Ford's economy car the smallest car in their lineup and it comes with the EcoBoost option now you can get the EcoBoost option in the Fiesta on the sedan or hatchback format vehicles this is the sedan body style per se prefer the hatchback I like the looks a lot better in the utility but let's see what's really important about this car merida the hood here is what makes this car special this is ford's little one liter EcoBoost engine so it's only got three cylinders you don't really find that in a lot of cars these days one liter is also particularly tiny EcoBoost means it has direct injection you hear the clatter of those injectors right now that's just a attribute of direct injection engines it's also got a turbo that helps bring the power up 223 horsepower 148 pound-feet of torque which are exceptional numbers for a one liter engine and those are much more than the standard 1.6 liter engine you get in the Fiesta fuel economy is also up at 32 miles per gallon city forty five miles per gallon highway so that to give you about an average of 40 miles per gallon because you only have three cylinders that can throw off the balance but the four cylinder engine you have two cylinders going up two going down vice versa and that helps balance the engine by itself with three cylinders you have two cylinders going up one going down then vice versa only one going up in two going down that can throw off the balance Ford actually has done some interesting engineering here where they have a counterbalance pulley in here that helps balance that engine action out they also have some special engine mounts that help dampen some of that vibration so you don't really feel it in the cab is a much now in the cabin here is standard Ford Fiesta you know economy car stuff and in the head unit here we can see we have really the bass head unit for the Fiesta and even though MyFord Touch is available in the Fiesta it's not available with the so boost engine I'm not really sure why the head unit is depending on the engine but in some ways actually like this base head unit better what I'm not crazy about are these buttons here sometimes a little hard to figure out what's going on so I've got my iPhone plugged into the USB port down here on the console now this has the sync system which is really convenient so if I want to request a music I can just push the talk button USB please say a command play artist Led Zeppelin playing artist Led Zeppelin this is like got a three inch screen pretty small monochrome screen but it's really all you need for this car since there's no navigation one thing I really can't do very well is navigate my iPhone's music library with this interface here I also have sync app like so for example right now I've got Amazon Cloud Player so I can just hit this TOC button USB please say a command mobile apps mobile apps please say a command Amazon Cloud Player now it's looking for that app I've actually got a running on my phone with the iPhone you actually have to have the app currently running on the phone so you sit have to preset it for that that's why this really works better with an Android device because I'm Android device you just have to have the app somewhere on the phone it doesn't have to be running and that'll work over Bluetooth - with the iPhone you have to be plugged in with the cable so iPhone not as convenient Android more convenient now one thing about the EcoBoost engine is you can only get it with the manual transmission I mentioned the power numbers of this car certainly more than enough for a car like this but it's a little bit different I mean this kind of shows the difference when you have a very low displacement like this car that that power comes on at higher engine revs so you it becomes a little bit tricky to drive you're going up the hill right now and this is where can have a little bit of difficulty I stopped right here on the hill nice thing about star count Hill hold so I can just take my foot off the brake and I won't roll back but then I try to start and I gotta get those rubs up at starting a lug and then it gets those revs up and then it gets the power but stuff does happen when I turn the wheel you know there's a satisfying amount of happy to it it's well tuned that and the handling together really make this car suitable for its purpose is your basic economical transportation with the 1 liter engine now pace price forward se is 15 580 add 995 for the EcoBoost option and you end up with a total of 16 650 for this car now there is really no CNET style because you can't get my port touch or any of the upgraded electronics in the car you have to go with the bass head unit so that is basically CNET style or the Ford Fiesta EcoBoost