Rteyp

If I decide to sell-up one of the options is to use my insurance policy to cover the whole family on a "pool" car - son (21) daughter (17) wife and me !

Looking at a 1.6 Zetec new shape. Oddly the insurance works out same as 1.4 and only

B B

This is a slightly indirect answer but relates to the current crop of Fords.
Hired a brand new Focus Platinum recently and was well impressed.
Here was a car so sneered at by the badge snobs, yet it had one of the most comfortable driving positions I have ever encountered, & drove quietly and smoothly. It looked very smart in metallic black ( made the solid BB of Honda look very budget). The interior textiles, plastics and switchgear were of good quality & comparable with cars much more expensive.

Some years ago I thought I was being lumbered when I had to use a Mondeo as a company car. Again it was fine and did the job perfectly well, comfortable, and in the real world of getting from A to B kept pace with the traffic on todays congested roads despite a modest 2 litre engine mated to an auto box.
The Honda Accord that followed was an uncomfortable gutless thing.

The new Fiesta is a far more funky looking neat machine, making such warts as the BMW Series 1 look plug ugly and plain silly for the price.
So all credit for admitting you are looking beyond the badge to the car

funster

From a test drive, so you may want to take what follows with a pinch of salt.....

We took a Zetec-S out when the missus was looking for a new car a few months back. I expected good things considering the great reviews it had got. I think I wrote it up at the time on here.

Frankly I was very disappointed. As, more importantly, was the missus.

Overall, it was 'fine'. That's about the best we could say. Plus points were very much the styling. Very nice looking car and the wife had her heart set on the Hot Magenta (very girly). Decent quality of materials inside, but I think a lot of reviewers got carried away saying it had genuine big car feel in this respect. It didn't. Perhaps the Titanium does? Also a big plus over old Fiestas (I used to have one once upon a time!) was the soundproofing. Miles and miles better in the cabin than it used to be.

Disappointments? Performance. Really rather dull. Considering it had something like 30 nags more than the Fiesta Si I used to own it was just very, very sluggish. Steering was as good as could be expected at the price and the gear shift was pretty slick - as I'd expected - but on the whole, it just lacked get-up-and-go. Bad news, I think, considering it was the Zetec-S.

Also disappointing was the practicality. Still no fold-flat rear seats and still piss poor room in the back.

At the time we compared to the 1.4 Jazz EX and the Jazz was miles the better car, even with the image problem. Its lack of performance compared to the Fiesta was more than made up for by the massive list of goodies it came with.

Ultimately, the performance, or lack of, for the Fiesta did it in for me, and the utterly garbage service from the sales team at our local Ford (Hendy!) did it for the missus.

She ended up going for a Suzuki Swift Sport. The Jazz was just too challenged in the image department!

Lurking Lawyer

My dad took delivery of a Titanium spec Fiesta a couple of months ago. I was pleasantly surprised by the interior.

In comparison to my own 07 plate Focus ST, the Fiesta is a nicer place to be. Perhaps my expectations are low (let's face it, the S2000s and then a 10 year old Porsche 993 aren't the last word in toys and interior luxury! ) but I was pleasantly surprised at the level of kit and the quality of the finish.

Dad's has got the 1.4 engine (90 bhp-ish) with the auto box. I wasn't keen on the latter (but perhaps just because I'd never driven auto before) but it pulls smoothly enough and cruises comfortably on the motorway.

It's a big improvement on the outgoing model. Whether the interior impresses you will depend largely on what you're used to, I suspect.

bigfecker

I dislike that transformers head style centre console