[2012fiesta]

it's pretty great. i definately find it to be st up well for hypermiling.. which is not something i really have ever thought about at all. the six speed is really shifty through low gears and i find it to be generally unfriendly to getting slammed around...it pays to anticipate everything. the fiesta is my wife's, and i've got a 1985 f250 diesel. i end up driving them a lot the same.. . still learning the shift points. it likes to stay in sixth gear if you can let it, and really anywhere near 50 it'll stay there. like i read somewhere else backing off the gas up hills, and rolling into it so that you can, works out well. like you were on a bike, or in my case an old ass diesel truck with an ancient 4 speed tranny that don't like getting shifted on a hill. anyway under light throttle it seems really torquey at low revs, but it'll shift if you make it have to even a little... not like the truck. in the fiesta at 48-52mph cruising on a state road it's doing like 1700 revs. it may as well be idling. i drove from central mass to southern NH on a mix of interstate and state highways with a good bit of hilliness, about an hour and a half each way with very little traffic and got 44 mpg. but then i suspect that might get harder at 70 mph on a longer trip.. to some degree if it's already in sixth at 48 then there's no huge benefit to giving it a lot more air resistance. once you're paying attention at around 50 you can just feel it making miles with very little gas. i think we're doing like five hours twice soon on the interstate and i want to run it at 55 for a couple hours and then see if the average drops and how much at 70. also the car has cruise control and i think i do better without it. although i suppose it would work better on a flatter road.
also don't shift into neutral in an automatic for hypermiling it is dangerous and uses MORE gas... just ease off the gas gently.