Today brought mixed emotions about my Fit. I've been a regular on here, and many times it's been about quality issues with the car. Since buying it in October 2014, it now only has 4,100 miles. But what a journey it's been; trips to dealer due to a faulty alternator, two for the rear plastic piece breaking loose, squeaky clutch pedal twice, a taillight that filled with water, and I feel like there's something else I forgot. Never mind that the front bumper is beginning to sag, the front license plate holder is becoming unhinged (I've noticed other Fit's with similar issue), and rattles from the driver's door and hatch. Let's not forget the dent fiasco when I dented roof's paper thin sheetmetal after waxing it, which I have since done again. All of it is pretty minor, but annoying to say the least and not what I expected from our first brand new car.

I've casually kept an eye out for a used car to replace the Fit, so I don't get hit with depreciation again. This week I stumbled across a bright green 2014 Ford Fiesta SE with manual and 22k miles at a local new car dealer. The kicker is the price; $8,995! It's been on their lot for months and they probably just can't get rid of it with the transmission/color combo. I had the same luck with my yellow, manual Focus seven years ago. Anyway, I took a look at it today





I didn't buy a new Fiesta last year because it is very cramped. But otherwise, it does feel more solid than the Fit. The same emotions all came back today; fun to drive, attractive, and nicely equipped, but a narrow driving position and cramped back seat. I told them I'd think about it

I took my Fit on a drive right afterwards and it felt so much more roomy and reminded me of why I bought it. That drive lead me to some mountain roads and the car was fun to fling about, especially with the manual, and is pretty close to what a Fiesta offers in that regard. But the rattling in the driver's door panel, the back hatch, seeing the drooping bumper and knowing what a journey it's been, puts a damper on the car.

The Fiesta was bought by its original owner a month before we bought the Fit, so the length of warranty would be almost the same, and the price is so low that we'd actually be able to pay it off from what we could get for the Fit, which beats paying off the Fit another 3 years or so. Since we bought the Fit last year, we also added a low mileage (61k) 1992 Ford Explorer to our garage that can do most of the hauling that the Fit would.

But part of me felt nostalgic with the roomy driver's seat and fun today, and that I should keep faith in this car being good for the long haul.

I am considering offering the dealer the crazy price of $7900, and seeing if they'll bite. Hopefully the Fiesta experience could be better, but part of me wants to keep the faith with the Fit. It is after all, my first new car and bought right getting married, and we didn't plan on seeing it go this quickly

 

I've had my fair share of problems with the fit, including the sagging bumper but I wouldn't trade it into a Ford anything. We actually traded in a mustang to get into the fit. My, at the time fiance now wife, had a host of problems with that mustang. Her last car was a focus and that too had issues. Her statement was that when it was new, it was great but would deteriorate quickly.

I had a rattling in the front drivers side door too. It ended up being the glass. I had to fight to get that replaced and once it did, the was rattling gone.

 

Only you can make this decision, and you really have done all the homework you can, so you're informed. You own and drive the Fit and have owned and driven the Fiesta. There are fewer unknowns, which will make the decision simpler.

Going back to first principles, get a piece of paper and write down why you want a small car, and then write down the top 5 most important attributes of this small car. You can use this checklist when analyzing both cars.

I have paraphrased the pros and cons for both cars, all from your writeup. This, without anyone else's bias.

Fiesta
Pros
-feel more solid than the Fit
-fun to drive
-attractive
-nicely equipped
-better financing
Cons
-very cramped

Fits
Pros
-so much more roomy
-roomy driver's seat
-pretty close to Fiesta handling, fun
-fun
Cons
-rattling in the driver's door panel, the back hatch
-seeing the drooping bumper
-bad history: knowing what a journey it's been

One unknown is that you really don't know the service and future history of this specific Fiesta. Your favourable past history with a Fiesta does not automatically transfer over to another car.

 

Wow, thanks TorontoBoy! As always, you're very analytical, which puts things into perspective. Thank you for taking the time to read my post and to organize a pros/cons sheet. Your list really hit the nail on the head.

You're right in that I've done all of the research that I can and it's now a matter of preference. It's really a debate of whether the Fit ownership experience will get any better vs can I adjust to the Fiesta's cozy quarters?

I'll give it some thought for the next day or so. But once again, thank you!

 

You make a good point; my 10yo Focus was not trouble free- but I did buy it with 43k miles. It did, over the course of six years, need engine mounts twice, and the power windows stopped working once, as well as a few rattles. Your experiences sound even worse with the Mustang and Focus

The Fiesta does not rank well for reliability, although most of that is due to the terrible DCT automatic. It really is awful and I would never touch a Ford with one. Luckily, the manual will avoid that issue

 

I have sat in a Ford Focus and felt claustrophobic, or "intimate". It has less than half the hatch space of the Fit, and the rear seats don't even fold flat. There's not much room in the back for passenger's legs. One of my criteria for the small car was the ability to haul stuff around, and the Focus just would not do.

Be it a Focus or Fit, these are inexpensive small cars. Fit and finish are not their strong points. Any car brand in this price range will have these issues. If you can slowly tweak your Fit then you might be happier with the long term experience.

 

Intimate is the perfect word for the Focus' driving position. Between the "pregnant dash" that juts out into knee room, and the center console that's as wide as a Jewish deli counter, the driving position is not exactly roomy. The latest Fords do not have good interior packaging and a bad size vs room ratio. The back seats on the Fiesta and Focus are ridiculously small; which makes no sense as they're German engineered. Those people are pretty tall, or at least taller than the Japanese.

My old 2005 Focus ZX5 before the Fit was so roomy and spacious. Apparently when Ford designed the first gen Focus, they wore suits to mimic the physical limitations of senior citizens and make the interior roomy and user friendly. It worked and I never felt cramped in that car. That idea didn't carry over to the latest gen at all and it was really the deal breaker when we eventually bought the Fit

After spending some time in the Fiesta, getting back into my Fit did feel much more airy. The car almost has a mini-minivan driving position and there is nothing on the dash or doors that enfringes on my kness, elbows, or anything else on me with minimal padding on the bone. Honda did a much, much, much better job at interior packaging

 

I owned a 2014 Fiesta SFE before trading into a 2012 Fit.

Would do the trade 10 times out of 10, even knowing the 15 MPG drop in fuel economy, (remember the SFE is the 1.0 Ecoboost I3) from 55 MPG to 40 MPG.

Fiesta is a soulless appliance, no fun to drive, terrible interior ergonomics, small, built poorly, heater froze at first snowfall & had to have the entire heater core replaced (thankfully under warranty...this is a known/widespread issue), fuel pump was on its way out at 6k miles, had to have 2 power window regulators replaced, etc.

In other words...its probably pretty similar to the GK, especially if its a 1.6, will even have similar MPG.

 

After owning a 2012 Focus 5dr Titanium for almost 3 years, it's pretty simple: Never. Another. Ford.

 

I've had mostly Honda's for the last 30 years and definitely strayed out of my comfort zone to get my 6sp manual Fiesta ST, but so far its been a really fun trouble-free purchase with no issues. I hope it holds up well over the coming years, but time will tell.

 

What happened in those three years with the Focus? That latest Focus had a lot of teething issues in 2012 when it first debuted; namely the automatic and the infamous FordMyTouch

 

That sure is a step out of the comfort zone! How many miles are on your Fiesta and any complaints about living with it day to day? Has the interior space and driving position bothered you much?

You get the choice of both a Fiesta and Fit every day; so if you had to have just one.........

The price on this particular Fiesta is just too low to ignore....well, at least not easily

 

Ours was one of those 2012s. And it was built fully 10 months into production. It was a really well designed car. I really wanted to like it. Too bad they never finished engineering it and did a terrible job building it.

MFT was terrible from day 1. Four or five updates later it was still mostly terrible. You never knew what it was going to do next. Even without touching it. Needed a steering rack immediately because of a break-over "notch" in dead center. Headliner was never installed right. (Never had them try to fix that for fear of collateral damage. If we'd been happier with the car and weren't eager to get rid of it, we probably would have taken that on before the warranty expired.) One of the rear taillight housings never fit right and was loose when we got it. The car had an endless collection of squeaks and rattles. The rear seat upholstery was coming off the frame and Ford had the nerve to be reluctant to own the problem even though it was obvious that it was never going to stay pressed into the (too wide) retention channel. Simple stuff like the low washer fluid status messages didn't work without begging for secret firmware updates. We never had anything worse than low speed driveability issues with the DCT. Three or four firmware updates made engine/transmission driveability *much* better. But we only put 20k miles on it, so the DCT might have been ready to dump its guts at any time. I could go on...

Did I mention that MFT was terrible? Sometimes the backup camera would be on for my wife's entire 20 minute commute--and in this state none of the other controls worked. If it didn't crash. Which it did. Frequently. You'd be driving down the highway and Poof. It was gone. Be back in a few minutes... Its VR was essentially useless. You never knew what audio source it would play when you started the car, but it frequently wasn't what it was when you last shut it off. When I took the car, if my wife was at home, the car would start paired to her phone. When I drove away, would it look for my also paired phone? Never. Even though it knew I was the other driver from my fob. And it was ten clicks or so into the menus to change that. Each update fixed some things. And always broke other things. Along the way they removed a feature that allowed user assignment of two functions to buttons on the steering wheel. So that left two cryptic buttons on the steering wheel forever more. And each update took an hour, engine running, and erased EVERY user setting. I could go on...

We sold it after 33 months and 20K miles. Because it was loaded, and because the 2012 Focus was, by that point, well known as a problem car, we only got about $0.50 on the dollar for the car. It did get good gas mileage, though.

Never. Another. Ford.

 

I should add: for the last year or so we had it, my wife was so fed up with MFT that she left it off and used her iPod with earbuds instead. (A practice that, from a safety PoV, makes be a little crazy.) So here was this car with the best factory audio money could buy and the audio was so annoying as to be basically useless and left off all the time.

We've been considering a 2016 Civic. The #1 reservation, by far, is concern about going down that "broken infotainment software" road again. At least Ford publicly admitted problems and made multiple updates easy to get and install--even if they didn't help much. It's not at all clear Honda will do either. And it is already quite clear that they have similar software issues.

 

Just under 8K on the ST, no problems. It is fully optioned out with Recaros, Nav, sunroof, climate control, 200hp 6 speed, etc. I love it as a drivers car and the driving position is great since the seat bottom is tilted properly. I had to modify the Fit front edge 1" up to get more comfortable.

The Fit is better on MPG, much more versatile inside, and with the CVT a lot less engaging, but it replaces our Odyssey very nicely and quieter inside than the ST or the van. If I could only have 1 car, and cargo needs for 1 person, the ST would work well. It is also VERY firm and not everyone is up for that.

One person could go camping with the ST, but not two as easily as we did with the Fit last fall.

On the other hand, for one person, I would not get a lower end Fiesta than the ST, instead I would get the Fit 6sp manual.

Bottom line, the ST is the only Fiesta worth getting if you value a hot hatch experience, otherwise the Fit wins out for practicality and MPG. Again, I mentioned somewhere, can't really compare the ST to the Fit since the price differential was about $4500 fully optioned out and would have been over $5000 compared to the Fit manual.

 

Many have had the same complaints as you with the FMT, and it is worth avoiding it like the plague. I would never recommend it; even in its latest guise. It's the main culprit for Ford's massive nosedive in reliability ratings in the past four years. It seems like they rushed it into the market to have an edge (no pun) on everyone else, and it was half baked.

Like you mentioned with the new Civic, these infotainment systems make a great showroom impression, but the long-term durability and usability is always in question. They're essentially computers and can, and will, freeze. When your radio and ventilation is controlled by them, you're really at the mercy of the software.

No thanks.... that's one of the main reasons I chose my LX over an EX. Nothing is more reliable and simple to use than knobs and buttons.

And thankfully this Fiesta doesn't have a touchscreen either. But on that note, the Fiesta radio looks unique and is kinda cool, but it is a mess of buttons and they slope away from the driver. I sat in my LX yesterday and even though the radio may not be the most exciting to look at (although not at all unattractive), it is so much more user friendly

 

I drove a '78 Fiesta from new into the ground. I test drove a new Fiesta last summer ($50 bounty from Ford for doing so) and, like the Focus, it makes a great showroom impression. Attractive looks, good packaging, a good test drive. Even our '12 Focus, when it was working as intended, was a great car. Ran well. Except for takeoff from stop/shifting 1-2 at low acceleration, it was great to drive. (After three or four firmware updates. And after the steering rack replacement.) Great lighting. (Except for the taillight that didn't fit. And the marker bulb that went out in the first two weeks.) Great wipers/rain sensing. Comfortable. Quiet. (Except for the cacophony of squeaks and rattles.) Loved the MFT when it worked.

But the day-to-day reliability and quality problems were just pathetic and something we couldn't get past. I'd be considering a Fiesta as a candidate for the open slot in our carport, but the Focus experience puts a quick end to that thought. The 3G Fit dropped out of the race when the wife had a profoundly negative reaction to the left sail window blind spot. Current front runners are Versa Note ("it's just a basic car"--boy is it) and 10G Civic (great car but potential infotainment and other software nightmare).

Consumer Reports owner-reported quality for Fiestas is considerably worse than for Mk3 Focuses. Tough to say if that's all MFT and DCT, but I doubt it.

 

I would not buy a ford there is somethign in that brand that i do not like it maybe the safety issue in all the back fords.

Anyhow, why not a mazda 3 hb? Maybe a 2014 used. Or wait for the next civic but it is really pricey. Does they sel mazda 2 over there, they are nice.

 

Mazda = squeeky loose interior, always has been an issue always will be.. Mazda really goes lowball on the interior of their cars even the high end ones.. Loved racing a rotary but no use for them on the street.. YMMV

 

Good suggestions Kike. The Mazdas just don't do it for me. The 3 looks disproportioned with its extremely long hood, and the audio interface that is plunked on top of the dashboard looks like an after-thought and would drive me nuts; I'd want to rip it off. Grrrr!!!!

And the 2 was honestly the worst car I've driven in years. I rented one in 2013 and sat in a few at auto shows, and just thought it was a miserable little penalty box. It was one of the very, very few cars that I couldn't wait to return to the rental agency. Just as cramped as the Fiesta, but also slower, lower fuel economy numbers than the Ford or Honda, cheap and nasty plastic interior, it was very noisy on the road, and just felt really tinny. It'd probably go forever, but would you really want it to? The Fit is so much better in everyway, faults and all. Sorry for sounding harsh

The other cars that have impressed me after renting or driving a few have been the Accent and especially the Sonic.