Test drive Ford Fiesta

It was sheer madness to expect the Fiesta to pull out of the snow. But the hatch jumped out onto the road as if there was no snowfall

The street smelled of burning clutches, and in the distance came the sound of shovels. Moscow was covered with snow so that it was much more difficult to find a car in the yard than in the Mega parking lot. The situation was aggravated by a tractor that separated the parked cars from the roadway with a high parapet. “Let's try to swing, otherwise it won't work - we need a shovel,” the neighbor asked for help pulling out his station wagon, but after five minutes of futile attempts he went to the bus stop. Expecting the little Fiesta to budge was pure madness, and it suddenly rolled out of a meter-long snowdrift with almost no slip.

On the Russian market, with these distraught boards of currency exchangers, the Fiesta will have to slip harder. The hatchback we tested costs $ 12 and we have a long way to get used to those numbers. Even with a starting price tag of $ 194. taking into account all kinds of discounts and benefits, as well as the sobering understanding that we now cannot afford almost everything that is generally available in car dealerships. But what does it say? We could survive the winter. Moreover, we found several reasons at once why the Fiesta copes with the Russian cold weather at least no worse than other SUVs, which at some point suddenly became synonymous with a city car.
 

Can be quickly cleared of snow

It's already 07:50 on the clock, and it's dark outside, like on New Year's Eve. Snowblowers haven’t looked into the yard yet, so this is definitely not the best time to go to work. The situation is aggravated by the owners of crossovers who shamelessly brush snow like small cars. Better to wait until they disperse.

 

It took 20 minutes, but the girl in the snow-white down jacket continued to swing the brush vigorously. Previously, it seemed to me that crossover drivers are the happiest people, but in the days after a snowfall, they are probably harder than others. The first to leave the yard are not SUVs: Smart and Opel Corsa are snowing, which is strong, Peugeot 207 is trying to leave next to the parking space. Ford Fiesta is also among the leaders: a few strokes of the brush are enough to sit down and drive. The rear window with a visor on the fifth door is designed in such a way that it is practically invisible, as are the lights. The roof can be cleaned without going around the hatchback, and snow can be brushed off the falling hood in just a few steps.

A couple of minutes will have to be spent on cleaning the optics from ice - the headlights are designed in such a way that water from the top of the hood constantly drips onto them. You will also have to work with a scraper on the front windows - ice often forms here too due to not very effective airflow settings. If there is no time or energy to clear the body, then you can go and so, brushing the snow only from the windshield. The Fiesta has a very streamlined body (drag coefficient of 0,33), so snow that obstructs the view will fly to the sides even before the hatch jumps out of the yard.
 

Warms up quickly

At 08:13 I was already out on the main road, but it was very uncomfortable to say hello to my skinny neighbor on the Touareg, who had to work with snow at least until lunchtime: it was very uncomfortable to sit in a Fiesta in a winter jacket. The narrow seat hinders movement - it's good that our hatch has a "automatic".

 

But inside the Fiesta it is much warmer than in an SUV, where the wind is blowing: it takes a lot of time to warm up these cubic meters of free space. Under the hood, our five-door has a 1,6-liter aspirated engine with 120 horsepower. Its power is enough to force the snowdrifts, but on a dry road the excitement of the engine is still not enough.

In addition to modest fuel consumption (at -20 degrees Celsius, the Fiesta burns 9 liters of gasoline in the city), the engine reaches operating temperature very quickly. While your neighbors with supercharged TSIs sit in cold cars for half an hour, you can start the Fiesta and go right there. Warm air will go into the passenger compartment in a couple of minutes. The secret lies, among other things, in the cramped engine compartment. The Fiesta engine will warm up to operating temperature in 5-7 minutes.

"Warm options"

A minute later, the Fiesta ran into a burgundy traffic jam, driving a total of 300-400 meters, but in the hatchback it was already Tashkent. And this despite the fact that the engine has not yet reached the optimum temperature. Ford's heated seats work faster than an electric stove. This option is available in all versions starting with Trend Plus (from $9). Spirals even warm the lower back, but the system has few modes of operation - only two. In the first case, the seat is barely warm, and in the second, it is too hot. Due to incorrect settings, you have to constantly turn the heating on and off.

 

The main loser of the year is not the Englishwoman who washed the winning lottery ticket, but the Fiesta buyer who ordered the hatch without heated windshield. Moreover, this option, like heated seats, is already in the middle version of Trend Plus. However, you should not expect that the spirals will quickly melt the ice on the windshield - they work very slowly, so it is better to help the heating by turning on the wipers and washing the glass with an anti-freeze.

But the Fiesta does not have a heated washer nozzle (a common option among state employees) in any of the trim levels. She was especially lacking on the Moscow Ring Road, where there was nothing to do this winter without washer fluid.
 

It's hard to get stuck

An hour later, Fiesta faced a more difficult task - to find a free space in the parking lot at the office, where the road had not been cleaned since last year. On virgin snow, the hatch behaves like a compact crossover - just press the gas with great effort, and the car immediately overcomes the obstacle. On cleared pavement with snowy lanes, the Fiesta is much more difficult - thin tires do not cling to the ice well. And it would be nice if the problems were only in the parking lot, but the hatchback, and on slippery highways, every time tried to move off the path, cutting off the traction with the stabilization system.

 

In long corners, it is better to reduce the speed to a bicycle speed of 20-30 km / h, otherwise there is a chance to fly out. The Fiesta is where studded tires are a must. Ford feels much more confident in an environment where the rear-wheel-drive sedan won't budge an inch.

The hatchback has a large ground clearance by the standards of the class (167 mm) and very short overhangs, so that every time the Fiesta drives out even from deep loose snow. The yardstick here is the front bumper - the hatch starts to bury itself only if the bumper rests against the snow. In any other situation, Ford drives out.

The Fiesta has a very short wheelbase of 2 mm, so you can force the snowdrifts while driving. However, the Fiesta could be even more passable if the traction control system was turned off. When you drive out of a snow-covered place in the yard, the front wheels fall on the cleared path, and the rear wheels get stuck in the snow porridge. It seems that a little more gas - and the hatchback will jump out on the road, but the electronics roughly chops off the traction. We have to try again, this time at a higher speed.

 

As the snow melts, the Fiesta itself is transformed. No more nervousness at city speeds - the hatch confidently dances a jig on irregularities, boldly dives into a rut on the TTK and rebuilds through 2 rows, without getting confused in its own trajectory.
 

Doors do not freeze

Do you know the situation when a warm car, standing in the cold, is covered with a thin layer of ice, and at the same time the handles and seals are frozen dead? This story is not about the Fiesta. Even if you wash the hatch on the eve of severe frosts, the locks will not freeze. Thick handles (similar to those installed on the older Focus and Mondeo) are always dry in the cold, and the keyless entry buttons are rubberized and work in any situation. The same applies to the handle of the fifth door - it is wide and remains functional in cold weather far beyond -20 degrees.

In early January at the gas station there was a separate line of those who could not open the fuel filler flap after a long stay. Unlucky motorists who have a lid on a clip. On the Fiesta, the hatch here is centrally locked, so this problem does not concern her either. The hatchback also does not have a fuel filler cap, but a valve is installed instead. Even if the whole car is covered with a crust of ice, refueling will not be difficult. But there is one problem: the tank of the Fiesta, built on the Mazda2 platform, is on the left, so that the winter jacket can easily get dirty on the gas station.