SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.

*To read one of our archived road tests, just select from the alphabetical menu of manufacturers' names on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu that appears.

*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


At first glance the Ford Fiesta 1.0 EcoBoost Titanium seems expensive. We look more closely

Pics supplied

   
Play music for me

Published in Witness Wheels on Thursday October 3, 2013

There’s a tired old line about it not being the size that matters, but what it can do. Fact is, it’s sometimes true. Take Ford’s Fiesta 1.0 EcoBoost Titanium for example.

Its price seems ambitious, but give the car a chance to impress you - over speed humps, through city streets and on the freeway. See how it revs freely and smoothly to 6500 rpm without buzzing, vibrating or making a racket. Then when you say: “Goes nicely. What is it - a 1600?” your salesperson can tell you it has a one-litre, three-cylinder, turbocharged engine that’s won prizes all over the world; has a CO2 rating of only 99 grams per kilometre and will cost very little to run. If you’re young enough, they might tell you the car can read out incoming text messages and obey simple voice commands like: “Play Taylor for me.”

The all-in cost of R240 000-plus for a range-topping Titanium version might scare you at first, but compare it with prices of some naturally aspirated1600s with fewer features. Times have changed and we can no longer simply reject what’s unfamiliar. For example, that engine develops 92 kW and 170 Nm, as much or more than many 1600s; it’s lighter and creates less friction than an equivalent four-cylinder and it’s just as smooth. The inherent three-cylinder imbalances were eliminated; not by means of heavy and expensive counter-rotating shafts, but with carefully placed equal and opposite imbalances. They not only do just as well at smoothing out vibrations, but they cost almost nothing. And they work.

Let’s look at the specs: Seven airbags, five-star NCAP rating, alloy wheels, fog lamps at each end, power windows with one-touch on both front doors, heated electric mirrors with down-lighting and automatic folding, an auto-dipping rearview, proximity locks that react to a gentle touch on the front door buttons, push-button starting, cruise control, automatic locking on the move, remote controls on the steering wheel and the kind of interactive Bluetooth you usually find only on really expensive cars.

Naturally you also get filtered automatic air conditioning, a six-speaker radio-CD-MP3 player with USB and auxiliary ports, ABS brakes with EBD and EBA, ESP, hill starting assistance and MyKey for tyro drivers. Add automatic headlights and wipers, kiddie locks, ISOFix anchors, a perimeter alarm with double deadlocking and an immobiliser. Now that your eyes have glazed from information overload, save this review and take it with you when you go into alternative showrooms. Other cars might not tick all the boxes.

Features are great, but what is it like? Obviously, it isn’t the fire-breathing ST. It has five doors rather than three, so friends or kids can get into the back; the suspension is much softer so it will go over speed bumps and the occasional dirt road without shaking your eyes out; it drives like a decent 1600 but won’t handle quite like a rally car; windows are big enough to see where you’re going and what’s coming at you, and its 10-metre turning circle means it gets in and out of tight spots easily.

The deep square boot measures 276 litres, loads at mid-thigh level and houses a spacesaver spare. Although there are no bins on the back doors, there are in front; along with a fair sized cubby, two cup holders, a box that holds eight CDs in regular cases and a couple of open trays.

It’s comfortable and easy to drive, the engine is willing and the five-speed manual gearbox shifts smoothly. The steering wheel is pleasantly thick and has little pads so it’s comfortable to hold in the ten-to-two position. Pedals are nicely spaced and they leave enough room to put your left foot down on the floor. Seats are upholstered in dark and non-allergenic fabric, and adjust mechanically. Naturally the rear seatbacks fold down to extend the loading space when you need more.

To be candid, if you’re tall and your passengers are too, they could find back seat knee room a little cramped and there are no grab handles, so you had better drive respectably. On the plus side there are seatback pockets, three belts, three head restraints and a 12-Volt socket.

Finally, the pricetag depends on interpretation; for a little one-litre car it’s eye-watering, but for a fully loaded 1600 it’s pretty fair.

Test car from Ford SA press fleet.

The numbers
Basic price: R238 600
Engine: 999 cc, DOHC, 12-valve, three-cylinder, turbopetrol
Power: 92 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 170 Nm between 1400 and 4500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 9,4 seconds
Maximum speed: 196 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 6,3 l/100 km
Tank: 42 litres
Warranty: 4 years/120 000 km; with 3 years’ roadside assistance
Service plan: 4 years/60 000 km; at 20 000 km intervals

To see the launch report and more technical details, click here

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.



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