Ford Fiesta MPG review Man vs Auto
 

First, I work at a Ford store so I get to test drive just about anything ...

SO I figured I would take the Ford Fiesta out for a test spin to see where they stood MPG wise.

My subjects were to hatchback Fiesta's one stick one automatic. My testing conditions;

-From cold start, drive the inner city 5 mile test drive route to determine each vehicles mpg on the route.

Grant it, not ideal conditions, but equally bad for both ..lol

Here is what I got;

Manual - 19.9 mpg avg
Automatic - 29.9 mpg avg

I drove both the exact same way, being mindful of my coasts, distances etc ... What I find is that the manual is extemely lacking in torque forcing you to go deeper into the throttle to get any responce from what seems like an underpowered engine.

On the other hand, the automatic with its new transmission was the exact opposite. It felt like the vehicle had the Mustang 5.0 under the hood, often forcing me to reduce throttle to not accelerate much harder than intended. The shifting was super smooth and while you could still tell you were driving a small 4cyl, it was much more balanced than the manual experience.

If I had to choose based on those test drives, I would take the automatic hands down.

Hopefully ford advances this transmission a little more in future models as it is lacking in the out of throttle cruise realm. Not until 20mph do you feel the clutches completely disengage and allow for free wheeling. The exception of course being cruising in neutral ...

If you have any other questions, ask me I should be able to answer them or get you answers ...

Thats mainly because your comparing 5MT to a 6AT tranny .

I would like to see these new DC 6speed in higher models, including mustang .

So that's the Trikkonceptz drive cycle. On the EPA drive cycles:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1281835818

That's the Fiesta SFE, then the stick, then the auto. This is a 6-speed automated manual transmission, something that I hope we see more of. On the EPA cycle the auto beats the stick by a small margin, and it probably has a better top gear for lower RPM interstate cruising. However, a hypermiler can do more engine-off work with a stick.

Trik, it sounds like you need to adjust your shift points and throttle positions a bit. I'll bet if you commuted for a week in each, you'd be able to get about the same mileage in each.

[QUOTE=Trik, it sounds like you need to adjust your shift points and throttle positions a bit. I'll bet if you commuted for a week in each, you'd be able to get about the same mileage in each.[/QUOTE]

Is sounds like they made an auto trans for the normal people, if trying hard on the manual will only equal the auto why bother? (I do like driving a stick better)

The stick is less expensive to purchase and to keep running, should exceed the FE of the auto if you do engine-off, weighs less, and is more engaging to drive.

I would take the 6 speed DC AT anyday if compared to 5MT .
Better response , easier to keep rpm in sweet spot and it still auto .
They happened to have new Fiesta on Motorweek yesterday, I forget which version (think it was stick ) but they said it was slow and problem going up mountainous type roads . They should of at least had sport version with slightly more HP/TQ but then again they market this a MPG car . you can always go up to focus or higher for more performance .

how come the sfe has 2 more on highway than the base auto but the combined is the same?

miles per tank the auto beats the manual by 10 miles. I often (like every tank) coast over a quarter of my 500 mile tanks. I would be hard pressed to give up 125 engine off coast miles to pick up 10 miles engine on.

If it's an automated manual transmision , you an easily shift it into neutral and coast happily.

does it bump start automagicly too?

Dunno, haven't tried that when I drove a friend's automated manual.

Maybe Trikkonceptz can try it on one of the Fiesta's.


BTW the Fiesta Econetic (diesel) version, is rated for 3.7 L/100km or 63.6 mpg US in the Euro cycle !

Regarding the Auto Transmission;

Do you know when the car "auto" starts and stops? Does it have to be in neutral? in gear? stopped?

Im wondering if you can drop it in neutral while going lets say 40mph and then the engine shuts off automatically (thus then going into defco... yay!)

I love driving a manual, but the temptation to burn a little rubber is sooooo strong......:confused:

...humor: "...dogs 'mark' fire hydrants and bushes, hot-rodders 'mark' pavement."

The proof is in the pudding. I wonder how long before they drop the manual all together? There is really no reason to buy a manual anymore when the double clutch gear box has this real world advantage.

It has that real world advantage when they give the automatic a taller gear than the manual. I wonder what the results would be if the automatic and the manual had identical gear ratios.

Nobody would want to buy a car like that. Try driving a double clutch gear box some time. A human being will never shift the way this thing does. The shifts happen much faster and much more often. It'll accelerate in third and immediately jump up to 5th or 6th as you start lifting off the gas. decelerate down to a stop and it'll keep the trans in 6th gear the whole way to minimize revs with the injectors turned off. Basically any time you're not accelerating or climbing a hill, you are in 5th or 6th gear no matter how slow you're going. Since the shifts happen so much slower it would be a waste of time for a human to try to mimic its behavior. Instead they would be frustrated by the overly tall gears. I encourage anyone to drive one of these. Its very different from any automatic I've seen. My experience was in a VW with a very similar double clutch box.

Ford Fiesta Diesel
 

I have a friend in South Africa with a Ford Fiesta Turbo Diesel, and he drives in the city commuting daily. In 2 years, he has averaged 62 MPG. (3.75 L/100km)
He keeps good records, but doesn't use any ecomodding techniques. I would love to get my hands on that car for a few months to see what I could get out of it.
Why can't we buy a car like that in the USA?

I've got some driving time in a friend's new Audi A3 1.9 TDI with DSG .
It didn't seem to shift that much more - but it surely shifts fast ;)

His mileage is a whole lot worse than with his previous (much lighter) A3 though.
Both cars are (were) driven in a similar way, without paying much attention to saving gas.
That worked well and effortlessly in the old manual 1.9 TDI, but doesn't work in the new A3 with DSG.

I resemble that remark!:thumbup::D

The Chevy Cruze comes with a either a 6 speed manual or a 6 speed dual clutch automatic, both with the same gear ratios and the manual gets 4 mpg better city and 1 mpg better highway mileage. From your description above, the dual clutch automatic goes into 6 gear engine braking whenever you let up on the throttle rather than the no drag freewheel that's available with just the touch of the clutch pedal on the manual. And with freewheel easily tapped, it is a lot easier to hypermile your way to even greater mileages than the EPA stickers would show. They've sold a lot of manual Cruzes overseas, so it must be enjoyable to drive.

I have very tall gears on my manual Honda Civic CX and manual Ford F150 and have no problems or frustration driving them.

Acording to Chevy site the Cruze LS (1.8L ) 6 speed manual gets 26/36mpg and the Cruze LT, LTZ with 6 speed DC auto gets 24/36 but have turbo 1.4L engines with fatter TQ #'s

That mileage comparison isn't valid since the two cars being compared have a different transmission and engine. The EPA mileage figures I saw were 26/36 mpg with the base 1.8-liter four-cylinder and a 6 speed manual and 22/35 mpg for the same engine with the 6 speed automatic.

So if there's no torque converter and no transmission oil pump in the auto, why couldn't you turn the engine off in neutral? I thought the reason you couldn't/shouldn't turn off the engine in an auto was because it stopped the flow of oil in the transmission, thus, you had an unlubricated driveshaft end of the transmission.

I'm not claiming you can, I'm just curious if I understand correctly.

BTW, this is the first American-made car that has piqued my interest in the last 20+ years (since I sold my hotrod). Not to say I haven't owned a half-dozen Chevy/GMC pick ups and Blazers in that time, but they were tools of necessity rather than something that actually interested me.

I agree that Detroit has mad a lot of uninteresting vehicles for many years. Thankfully Ford seems to be doing a good job of improving the quality and value of their vehicles.

Bassjoos did make an excellent point about the differing gear ratios. The tallest overdrive gear ratio I've ever owned was in an automatic; for the life of me I can't understand why car makers can't put taller gears into manuals as stock. I know the 6 speed in the Corvette has a ridiculous overdrive (.50 to 1 IIRC) which allows the Corvette to get amazing fuel economy on the highway when cruising, as in around 30 mpg!

most likely as with an auto if it starts to bog on you, the trans downshifts, with a manual, you could end up damaging the engine if you refuse to downshift.
thats the best reason I can come up with.

Aargh rub it in!

If they built it with special piston rings and cylinders as they do marine engines, then you could bog that motor down all day. I believe marine engines also use special bearings.

Modern engines like my cobalt 2.2 won't bog like antiques because the computer doesn't allow it, I have driven off from 500rpms with rather minor bog, it just doesn't take off efficiently doing that.

I find it odd my 5sp cobalt is rated higher than the 6sp cruise, should have put in a double overdrive instead of short shifter me thinks.

Someone would have to be pretty brain dead to not understand what the engine is telling you long before you can do any damage. I can do the same thing <20mph in 5th in most cars.

Not so much. A marine engine is built to run at a higher power setting for long durations. As in 80% load at 3500 rpm. They use heavier duty bearings, better internal oiling, and increased cooling to deal with the higher internal temperatures and higher average stresses that they are submitted to continuously.

The bogging and chugging you get when you lug an engine is due to the spark happening before top dead center, and with lower speed the piston is not far enough past top dead center when the pressure of the expanding fuel charge is increasing. So instead of adding a push down the burning fuel charge puts a stopping pressure on the piston and the momentum of the engine and previous combustion in other cylinders forces the "lugged" cylinder over the top and down.

This increase in resistance coupled with low oil pressure (because the engine driven oil pump is not turning very fast) causes the rod bearings to squish all the oil out and the bearing surfaces come into contact.

A marine engine with better bearings can withstand this for longer (though it would not likely be subjected to this as water is a viscous medium to transmit power to rather than a tire/road interface) but it is still bad for it.

I want to know this too... or if you can just pop it in neutral (since in this case it would be "true" netural)

right , plus a marine engine you can never get it to lug or bog down as there no direct drive as you in water there always slippage or whatever you want to call it being propeller powered ,engine never gets loaded down at low speeds .
The problem is with small engine if you gear it to high (low final drive) is it just don't have the torque in low rpm to be geared like that . You would get a condition were you be at HW speeds and not allow you to be in high gear until a higher speed for best FE .

The double clutch already does this when you take your foot off the gas unless you're braking.

Part of the auto vs manual gearing difference is also to cater to driver laziness. Most don't want to downshift for every little hill on the highway, so they gear it a little lower for the manual.

That's what I suspect is the primary motivation of car companies. Anyone who test drives one, puts it in fifth or sixth, and steps on the gas and doesn't feel acceleration is going to complain that it's gutless.

Yup. So in the real world the automatic ends up being more efficient.

Except on my cobalt, most hondas, all geos for example which all do get better with a manual.

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't realize the title of this thread was 'My Cobalt, Most Hondas, All Geos MPG review Man vs Auto.'. My bad. Please continue.

I would assume if I were to be driving a Fiesta MT that statement would expand to my Fiesta also. Since I've never had an MT of a vehicle ever get worse mileage than an auto of the same vehicle.

But I also don't drive normally either.

I've posted the gear ratios multiple times. There's a BIG difference between the 5MT and 6AT - think of one as "sport" and one as "eco."

Fiesta Ratios:

5MT:

1st 3.846
2nd 2.038
3rd 1.281
4th 0.951
5th 0.756
Reverse 3.615
Final drive 4.07 to 1


Optional PowerShift™ 6-speed automatic
1st 3.917
2nd 2.429
3rd 1.436
4th 1.021
5th 0.867
6th 0.702
Reverse 3.507
Final drive 3.895 for gears 1, 2, 5, and 6. 4.353 for gears 3, 4 and R

Typically, the MT will get better mileage around town (with an efficient driver). It's on the highway at steady speed where the gearing difference comes into play.