2014 Ford Fiesta ST - The Oppositelock Review

"TheBaron2112" (TheBaron2112)
09/15/2013 at 15:12 • Filed to: None

The hatchback market in the US is growing. And with that growth comes what all Americans love and cherish. No, not football or bragging about how much better we are than the rest of the world. I'm talking about competition. And where competition flourishes, the creme rises to the top. The Ford Fiesta ST is the cream of the US hot hatch market.

[Full Disclosure: Ford wanted me to drive a Fiesta ST so much, they built the 2005 Focus so I could buy it entering college, drive it for 8 full years and 112,000 miles, then decide I want a new car. Since they knew this decision beforehand, they prepared by building the Focus ST and allowing me to test drive it. And since they knew my desires and lusts, they decided to toss a couple of extra doors on the Fiesta ST in Europe and ship it over to the US. And, just when I'm ready for a new car, Ford sends the Fiesta ST to a dealership south of Nashville, Tennessee, that is so nice they let me test drive the car for a full 24 hours. Ford REALLY wanted me to drive a Fiesta ST. And I may oblige them by buying it.]

Exterior: 8/10

Among its contemporaries, the Fiesta ST is one of the meanest looking. Maybe not as mean as the new Mazda 3 or the Focus ST, but it certainly has a case of little man's syndrome with its facial expression. It isn't disapproving like the Sonic RS or drugged out of its mind on Nyquil like the 500 Abarth. It means business. It will swallow your face with its face and make happy noises while doing so. And you'll thank it.

Overall, it looks like a sharper, line-ier regular Fiesta. But instead of the Aston grille, it has the ST honeycomb. Around the sides, the Fiesta's lines just get better and better. Nice big doors for a car its size feature an upward-swooping belt line that gives the appearance of speed even standing still. The back looks great too. And it's a good thing, because that's what everyone on the highway will see as you growl past them. Monocles in the eyes of Mercedes drivers will pop all throughout the land as they are passed by a mighty, howling, tiny hatchback. "Gadzooks, Lovey! What was that economy car doing with a rocket up its bum!" they will say.

And it will be glorious.

Ford got it right by offering not only sharp, attention-grabbing colors like their ridiculous green and great looking blue and red, but also more subdued colors like silver and black and white. This will give the appearance to those out of the loop (hopefully the police cruisers positioned in parking lots and highway on ramps) that you're just another little hatchback.

I'll see how that goes and get back to you.

Interior: 8/10

I'll admit that I was wary of the interior of the Fiesta ST in my search for a new hatchback. Mainly this was because I was ignorant of it. I assumed it was like the Focus ST or the standard Fiesta—neither of which I like. Ford did a great job here once I actually decided to sit in one.

After comparing this between the Chevy Sonic and Honda Fit, I found it was far and away the best of the three. Sure, it doesn't have 18 cup holders and a veritable filing cabinet in the dash like the Fit. No, the cargo space isn't as massive as the Fit and the Sonic. But everything FEELS better. The materials are made of better stuff than the Sonic or the Fit. Everything seems like it'll last longer.

Steering wheel controls, climate control, radio stuff, and the My Ford Touch screen are all intuitive to use and well within reach (that is, unless you want to play with the touch screen. You'll have to lean forward a bit for that). But it has voice commands, so if you learn the language and improve your enunciation, you can control everything literally with one button on the steering wheel. Points there.

An option the Fiesta ST has is a Recaro seat package. The Fiesta I have does not have this option. And I'm not disappointed. Not only are the cloth seats comfortable, they're not as snug. Which you'd think would be bad. It isn't. I've tossed the car around a lot and the cloth seats are adequately supportive. And I think they'll be more comfortable in the long run. They certainly look a bit more "adult" than the two tone Recaros. This will be my daily driver, after all.

And seeing as it's my daily, it needs to have space.

And space it has! But if you look at the numbers, it has just over half of the space the Sonic RS has, and the seats aren't as clever as the Honda Fit's. So points off compared to those. But, really, are you going to use all 49 cubic feet of space in a Sonic? Do you really need the seats to fold flat? You know what a good trade for that?

POWAAAAAAAHHHH

Acceleration: 9/10

197 horsepower. 202 lb-ft of torque. Almost exactly 40% more of each than the Sonic RS and 100% more than the Fit. Really, at this point, the Fit isn't even a fair comparison. Power to weight in the Fiesta ST is 144.9 HP/ton. To give you an idea of where that sits, the Focus ST is 156 HP/ton and the Fiat 500 Abarth is 123 HP/ton. The torque is really what factors in. I've been up and down the gearbox and it seems like there is ALWAYS torque available in EVERY gear no matter where you are in the rev range.

Braking: 8/10

Discs all around. (And the calipers are red! RED! That means they're good!) I haven't had to do any panic stops, but the brakes feel good, aren't excessively grabby, and the pedal feel is almost perfect. They stop you and they look like they could do so from quite a high speed in quite a short distance.

Nobody really tests this properly. Who cares? Whatever, moving on.

Ride: 7/10

It's a small hatchback. The ride is going to be a bit less comfortable than in something bigger. It's also got sport suspension. And it's been lowered compared to the base Fiesta. And the 17" wheels are fit with low profile tires.

You'd think that all of these together would make it unusable on the streets. Ah, not so! It's actually pretty good. That said, the tires do mean that you get some rumble until they warm up. And the stiffer suspension does transfer more bumps. But that really isn't so bad. It's certainly better than the Focus ST, believe it or not. I don't know how Ford did that, but they did.

Handling: 8/10

You can toss this bad boy all over the place and it will happily track to where you point it. It rotates exceptionally well thanks to the suspension and Ford's stability control and torque vectoring. And at first I was wary of electronic power steering. It is very light and definitely less communicative than my Porsche 944. But once you get used to the finesse of the steering feel, there actually is a bit of communication. It'll grow on me.

I've actually noticed a hint of something we all love... LIFT OFF OVERSTEER! But it isn't drastic. It lets you know "I'm rotating!" so you can adjust accordingly with steering. You can certainly get a bit busy with the wheel when you take corners at high speed, but that's honestly part of the fun. It's engaging. And that's what I want. It's what YOU want.

Gearbox: 8/10

This gearbox is awesome. Clutch is light and well positioned, but it isn't absolutely numb. Throws are nice and short. Shifting is easy. I was worried I'd get sick of it around town, but I just haven't. This gearbox is seriously good. And part of it is because of two things:

It's a 6 speed. 5th and 6th are actually overdrive gears with ratios of less than 1. You're doing 40 on a boulevard? Shift it into 5th. RPMs don't drop below 1800 when going from 4th to 5th. You're saving gas. It's a hatchback! You're supposed to!

Hill Start Assist. If you're on a hill and you take your foot off the clutch, you expect to roll. Well, Ford anticipated that nasty thing we call gravity. They let the gearbox do some kind of sorcery where if you take your foot off the clutch on an incline, the car WON'T MOVE for 2 whole seconds. You can step on the gas in this window and start off with relative ease. Very clever.

Toys: 8/10

I give My Ford Touch a lot of crap. I don't like touch screens. I don't like electronic controls. I like analog buttons and CDs. But I can't ignore this. It's pretty cool. I am wary of it breaking though. Call it pessimism. Point off.

My favorite Rush album, "Hemispheres," as you can see from the screen, is being played from a USB drive. I copied it to a drive and put it in one of the 2 USB ports in the Fiesta's center console. This is amazing.

In addition to this magnificent feature, the Fiesta ST has an aux port, Sirius radio, navigation, HD radio, and voice commands. Radio can be controlled with buttons on the steering wheel, as can voice controls. The voice controls give you the opportunity to perfect your enunciation of English words. But once you learn to speak a language it understands, you can control literally everything in the car. And by literally, I mean figuratively. Damn Webster.

Oh, and the Fiesta has traction control that you can turn off. That's fun.

But by far the most useless of its toys is the ambient lighting. You have 6 colors to choose from which will illuminate the pedals, passenger footwell, rear foot-area, and your cup holders. At night the reflection in the passenger window is ridiculous. But if you're in your apartment driveway looking for the key card you dropped on the drive over, it's actually pretty handy.

Audio: 9/10

It isn't Fiat 500 Abarth levels of awesome, but it actually sounds pretty good. And Ford even pipes in REAL engine noise through a REAL pipe to the cabin. None of this speaker-synthesized rubbish BMW does. I thought it was silly, but it's actually awesome. The exhaust note is great.

The stereo is a stereo. They're all pretty good nowadays.

Road noise is negligible, which was VERY surprising. The mirrors have little fins on them to cut down on it. It works quite well.

Value: 9/10

It's a tad more expensive than the Sonic RS and about the same as a 500 Abarth. But the real surprise is that it's BETTER than the Focus ST, yet 5 grand cheaper. Ford made my decision for me, there.

I hate the phrase "you get a LOT of car for the money" because it really doesn't mean anything. Here, you get a lot of power. You get a lot of style. You get a lot of toys. And you get it for a reasonable $23,000ish.

Fuel mileage is also pretty good. The little computer on the dash says I've been getting around 29mpg. And I've been doing a fair amount of city driving and hooning.

Overall, the Fiesta ST is wonderful in every way. It's going to make a great daily driver AND a great toy. Which is why I'm going back to the dealer this afternoon to give them money, my old car, and sign some papers. Well done Ford. You've made what I feel is the perfect hot hatch for the United States.

Even though the engine and transmission are from the UK and it's assembled in Mexico...

But the other foreigner in my stable will be in good company.

Total: 82/100

DISCUSSION (17)

Victorious Secret > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 15:21

Its THE car in the market for me now.

More so than the 500 Abarth (the Abarth shoots flames though)

Just in terms of cars, the Fiesta and Focus are such great platforms to start from that picking anything else (maybe the Mazda 3 as an alternative) is a big waste.

SonorousSpeedJoe > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 15:25

Great write-up! I DD a 2012 Focus SE 5-speed and have been wondering what the Fiesta ST and Focus ST are like.

Is the Hill Start Assist defeatable independently of the traction/stability controls? I'm probably one of the manual n00bs who'd benefit from having it, but I'd still like to know if the option's there.

TheBaron2112 > SonorousSpeedJoe
09/15/2013 at 15:29

Honestly, I have no idea. I'll have to read the manual to see. My guess is, no, it can't be disabled.

And I haven't figured out how to enable the different stability control modes. Apparently there is a Sport/Street/Off mode that I haven't figured out how to use yet.

TheBaron2112 > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 15:33

It just occurred to me that I scored this almost as high as the SRT Viper GTS was by Jalopnik.

So yeah. I'm completely biased and this scale is the "hatchback/city car" scale. That explains why the score is in the 80s...

<_<

>_>

SonorousSpeedJoe > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 15:39

I see. It's just that Subaru and BMW have put defeatable hill-hold systems on their cars for years now, while GM sees fit to include systems in the Sonic and Camaro that can only be disabled by turning off the stability control. I just wanted to know if Ford's following GM in this regard.

But as I said, I think I lack the finesse with a manual that I'd need to puff my chest and say "I don't need a nanny like that", so it's fine.

Jayhawk Jake > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 15:51

Nice review. This is the car to get if you want a hot hatch, but don't need a lot of space. I didn't know it had a floor piece in the back, I've never seen a Fiesta with one, but it still looks pretty small for me.

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit jealous, and ultimately I wish the Fiesta was just a tiny bit bigger. Then I'd probably have one too.

I'm curious to see if it sells well enough for Chevy to respond with a Sonic SS. There's plenty of room in the engine bay for a bigger motor, a Sonic with 200hp or so would be a serious contender to the Fiesta.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 15:53

Yes, I'd rather have a Fiesta ST over that B180 CDI I have. In fact, I'd have a hard time deciding between the Fiesta ST and the Focus ST.

The B180 has a hill hold plus a start stop. And you can get it going without even touching the throttle, since the ECU will open the throttle for you if you start engaging the clutch.

Plus for the B180...it sounds like a mini lorry when it's cold. You know, if you like that sort of thing.

#NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat

TheBaron2112 > Jayhawk Jake
09/15/2013 at 16:11

I agree. Cargo space is the biggest downside here. And if the Sonic RS has equivalent HP/torque to the Fiesta, my decision would have been way, way more difficult.

Jayhawk Jake > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 16:51

The Jalopnik score isn't designed to compare all cars. It should only compare similarly classed cars. 82 is probably optimistically high, if I had to guess the official review will be more like 70-75, with knocks coming in ride, interior, and value.

Still, that would be a strong score compared to the Focus ST (69), Abarth Cabrio (70), and Sonic RS (60)

Whatever, the takeaway from all this hot hatch discussion? It's a great time to be a small, sporty hatchback fan in America. I'm excited to see what the future holds.

TheBaron2112 > Jayhawk Jake
09/15/2013 at 16:57

Huzzah, indeed.

Giles007 > TheBaron2112
09/15/2013 at 17:40

Great write up! You've convinced me; I will be test driving a Fiesta ST as soon as possible (I currently own a Focus ST). And yes, lift-off oversteer IS what I want.

MyOtherCarIsAPlane > SonorousSpeedJoe
09/15/2013 at 20:43

Yes, you can turn off JUST the hill start assist. I have a Focus ST, and I can have hill start assist on or off, and traction control in on, sport (or something) and off, independently of each other.

Christopher > TheBaron2112
09/23/2013 at 18:52

On the UK model, there's a small ESP button at the bottom of the centre console. This toggles Sport mode; to fully disable it, you have to have the ignition on and go into the Vehicle menu. This is A Good Thing.

Hill Start Assist is a simple checkbox in the same Vehicle menu which you can disable at any time, and is an automated override on the brakes by (I presume) the EMS, NOT the gearbox. (It works whether you're in gear or not, but I don't like it)

I wish we got that tricked out touch-screen stereo system though! Even the upgraded Sony headunit has nothing on the full US system. We only get one USB socket... I do like my half-leather Recaros though. :)

TheBaron2112 > Christopher
09/23/2013 at 18:55

Yep. ESP is on the center console here too. And I found hill start assist in the menu this weekend.

I need to figure out exactly how the traction control works. I know there's On, Kinda on, and Off, but I don't know the difference in how the selection works. I can press the button and the little light comes on that says it's off. But then I can hold it down and a progress bar on the computer screen comes up that says "disabling traction control" or something.

I really need to read the manual.

Christopher > TheBaron2112
09/23/2013 at 19:05

From my first month of driving and nonscientific experiments:

Full TC cuts throttle power if you happen to accidentally light the wheels up from a standing start. Most noticeable in first and second gear.

Sport mode allows you some wheel slip (no embarrassing power reduction if you're being eager from the lights) and lets you hoon respectably; it will engage Traction Control if things all get a bit too much for you and do a bit of meatier torque vectoring etc.

Full Off is what you'd use on a track day to prove your mettle!

Svend > TheBaron2112
11/28/2013 at 15:44

I do really like the Fiesta ST. Did my mate's Fiesta ST and his dad's Focus ST.

Kinja'd!!!

Ultrakill > TheBaron2112
02/16/2014 at 01:18

Hill Start Assist holds the brakes for 2 seconds after releasing the brake, not the clutch. You don't move your foot off the clutch onto the gas (else you would stall). Other than that mix-up, nice write-up.