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Comments
They must measure the FE with the roof closed.
I'll take the 38 mpg w/o all the heroics, costs, and compromises, thank you.
I checked out the Fiesta at my local auto show last week and it's a no-op for me--back seat is way too tight, and costs just a little less than a larger car e.g. Elantra. The Focus was "hands off." So I'll be interested to check it out once it arrives at my local dealer. Reviews I've read have been very positive.
It's the aesthetically-pleasing splittage of the grille
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
I know for me, 38 or 40 mpg doesn't make much of a $ difference.
The Focus has 2" more leg room in the back seat than the Fiesta. I have attached the comparison. Look how close in size everything is. I read reports from car and driver and motor trend and they are getting around 27mpg with the focus. I know they drive like crazy people but that tells me that its going to be more like the Elantra and get in the low 30s versus closer to 40mpg. Plus my local Ford dealer will sell me a Fiesta for under invoice and they are not dealing on the Focus so an equally optioned Fiesta SES hatch is about $4000.00 cheaper than the Focus
http://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=101266476|hatchback&veh2=101364703|- sedan&show=0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8&comparatorId=2834308
No wonder they aren't dealing yet on the Focus... it isn't even officially "on sale" yet! And it's a new design, and by all accounts one of the best cars in the class. Probably not much in the way of discounts for some time.
In reality, we do a lot of driving at speeds between 30-45mph will stop signs and traffic lights. For this type of driving, a HWY rating of 40 or 38 won't make much difference. Now if 90% of your driving is in conditions where you can keep the transmision in 6th gear at 65mph at a constant speed, then the 40MPG rating might be a benefit. But if you're in the high gear yet at every grade or passing situation the transmission drops to 5th, so you're bouncing the transmission back and forth between 5th and 6th gears you'll have a lot of wasted energy and so all these refinements might not get used.
You really need to measure about how much highway vs non highway miles you'll be driving, and then determine if you need something with good city, good highway, or a good mixed use mpg.
I would doubt that in normal 50/50 city/hwy driving there would be more than a 2-3 mpg difference on average. In fact, on a straight hwy trip I think the Focus would probably beat the Fiesta.
I suspect that as the previous two blogs have said, that a Prius will get the high mileage ratings because it is inherently designed not to waste energy of a vehicle in motion. When I drive keeping that principle in mind, my mileage goes up noticeably. These new Focuses are probably even more driver performance oriented than the older ones, and I suspect many if not most people will drive them that way. Lets face it, the Focus people who are anticipating the arrival of the new one, will not be satisfied by the dynamics of a Prius.
On that front Last Friday, here in Albany NY , the N.E. new car dealers had their annual car exhibit. Only one Hatchback was there which they did not let anybody in. ( It was a pre-production job they said ) Several Company reps were there who were very helpful They gave everyone who signed up a $50 credit card for doing a test drive at their local dealers. Local dealers do not have any cars to drive or even see. At last years show they did a similar promotion for the Fiesta which I did not buy but got the $50 any way for testing out the new Mustang 6 Convertable. Not a bad deal i would say.
This is Seni with Ford Customer Service. Have you considered which vehicle has the better incentives? We would be happy to look up any local area incentives on the Focus or the Fiesta, please feel free to call the Ford Marketing Headquarters at 800-334-4375, at your convenience. You may also check out www.Ford.com/Incentives, for local incentives on all of your favorite Ford vehicles.
Seni
Ford Customer Service Division
Yes I am a pro on incentives. Right now my local Ford dealer will sell me a Fiesta SES for just under Factory invoice. I will also get a $500.00 rebate and a $500.00 Car show rebate and just because I went to Ford.com and asked for a brochure I got a $750.00 private offer so the Fiesta is way cheaper than the Focus right now. I am waiting for an Focus SEL to be delivered to my Ford dealer and give it one last test drive before I purchase the Fiesta. I figure I can not go wrong with either one of them.
Sometimes a small engine can be worked so hard that a bigger engine will actually be close(notice I said close, not the exact same) in MPG results.
The 28/40 mpg on the Focus you are citing is only with the SFE option and is not the standard Focus which is only 38mpg hwy. Maybe you could cite some of "all the resources that are out there" as I just haven't seen it and I also haven't seen a lot of tests on the Focus that indicate that it will do poorer than the estimated EPA numbers. Car magazines are not trying to drive normally for MPG, in fact they drive the opposite as you well know.
I would expect the Focus to come in at around 3 mpg less combined which is not that much less than the Fiesta. But if it's absolutly the highest MPG you want, the Fiesta should definitely return the better numbers.
Where does the 6 mpg come from? Are you comparing a Car&Driver test of the Focus to the EPA estimate of the Fiesta or what?
From my perspective, you're making a mountain out of a mole hill; I seriously doubt you're going to see even a three mpg difference between the two cars (unless you drive the Focus for all its worth but would otherwise baby a Fiesta). Long story short, I'm betting your annual fuel costs wouldn't differ by even $200 between the Fiesta and the Focus.
While I'm on the subject of annual fuel costs; if you really want to minimize them, buy a VW Golf TDI. No Ford sold in North America can touch the TDI from a fuel cost perspective.
http://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=101335600&veh2=101266476|hatchback&- - - show=0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8&comparatorId=2401190
Really? Really?
looks like $5.00 a month difference to me. How many months will it take you to recover your initial price difference of the diesel?
As for the initial cost of ownership, you have to compare apples to apples (i.e. the Golf to the Focus), and when you do you'll see that depending upon options, the Focus is more expensive (significantly so in some cases) than the Golf.
Where did the $5.00 a month come from anyway? The comparison shows a $2 a month difference based on 15k miles a year. You said you drive twenty so it would only be about a $3 a month difference...not to get anal about it but just wondering where it came from. Since TDIs cost about $1200 to $1500 more than comparable gas engines it could take a long, long time for any payback at all.
To be fair though, I think shipo might have meant fuel economy, ie. MPG in which case he'd be right. It's not really comparable as the Fiesta is 20% lighter and a smaller vehicle. However, the Golf and Focus would be a lot more comparable.......getting back on topic before the hosts slam us.
I have to agree that diesel owners report some fantastic numbers but I've also read a lot of gasser forums where some pretty far fetched numbers are reported. There are people that say they consistenly get 40-45 mpg on the hwy with their Camrys and Accords. I find it very hard to believe unless their drafting a semi all the time or driving 50mpg in a 70 zone both of which is extremely dangerous IMO.
1) Please understand that I'm not advocating a TDI over say a Focus, I was just trying to illustrate that paying too much attention MPG numbers can be a never ending process. The truth is that the difference in monthly fuel costs between any of the cars being discussed here is completely insignificant when the overall cost of driving any given number of miles is considered. FWIW, if I had to buy a car today and had to choose between a Focus and a Golf TDI; I'd probably opt for the Focus.
2) When I said fuel costs that is what I meant, driven like for like, a diesel engined car will cost significantly less fuel wise than a comparable gasoline fueled car, even if diesel is $.50 per gallon more expensive than Regular Unleaded.
3) The thing about folks claiming high mileage is that those that drive diesels don't need to resort to on-road heroics to coax high mileage from their cars; all they need to do is drive them normally. Gasoline powered cars, not so much.
Agreed. Same size/weight of vehicle the diesel will win hands down in fuel cost unless diesel prices go thru the roof and gas prices don't. Not likely.
There are TWO suspensions available, correct? The "normal" suspension available across all trims, and then the Sport Suspension available only with the Titanium 18-inch package?
Note that there is an Sport package available for the SE, but if you click on the details, there aren't any changes to the actual suspension itself. There are larger wheels, better brakes, and several cosmetic items in the SE Sport Package.
Have a good DRIVE !
I will be waiting for an opportunity to have one myself. Hopefully without the salesperson sitting there yapping at me.
Said another way, for any car that doesn't require 18" or larger wheels to fit around the brakes, the best handling option is to go for a slightly smaller wheel. Relative to the Ford Focus, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a Focus SE with 16" or 17" wheels and the Sport Package (for the rear disk brakes) turn in better lap times on a tight track than a Focus Titanium with the "Titanium Handling Package".
I can't quite tell if the 16 inch wheels in the SE Sport Package are the same as the 16 inch wheels standard in the SEL. The ford.com trim comparison would seem to suggest that they are different wheels.
Also, the sport seats in the SE Sport Package are standard in the Titanium but not even available as an option for the SEL. However, both the SEL and Titanium can be upgraded to leather seats. It's kind of odd that a feature jumps over the midline trim.
I think you are right on! You can not go wrong with either vehicle. The fuel economy, affordability and your incentives make this a very sweet deal! Enjoy your Fiesta or Focus!
Seni
Ford Customer Service Division
Thinking about the above statement further, the SEL seems to be the luxo version, and in that model the lack of a manual transmission is kind of irrelevant; the lack of a manual in the sportier Titanium is another matter entirely. Had Ford simply allowed the Titanium to be configured with a stick, then the option list for the SE could have been limited and caused far less confusion for the buying public.
2012 Ford Focus SE in Alan Mulally blue...I...I mean Ford blue!
Man, I like the SE model in this blue. I am popping the 2012 Ford Focus SE in 5-speed manual trim back up above the 2012 Kia Rio on the top of my future purchases list. That is if Mitsubishi doesn't tempt me with another Lancer GTS or Lancer GTS Hybrid.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
I don't buy that argument even in the least. My bet is that Ford is basing their decisions on flawed data from the previous generation Focus (a horrifically boring vehicle that was semi-popular in stick form only because it was cheap) instead of looking at cars like the Mazda3 (a car which budget minded enthusiasts flock to). By contrast, the new Focus has completely shed its crappy econobox (in North American form) cloak and moved squarely into the enthusiast realm occupied by the Mazda3 and European variants of the Focus.
From a simplicity (in both marketing and manufacturing) perspective it would be so much cleaner for Ford to offer a manual (say the current 5-Speed) in a trim with limited options (call it SE-lite) for the economy minded folks of the same ilk that bought the previous Focus with a stick. For the folks which would otherwise opt for a Mazda3 GT 6-Speed they could offer the Titanium with say a 6-Speed manual. From my perspective, ugly though the new Mazda3 may well be (I like the looks of my current Mazda3 but it won't last forever) and with as poor as the relative fuel economy numbers are, I'm much more inclined to buy a new Mazda over the Focus simply because Mazda hasn't forsaken the enthusiast.
15,000/50mpg x $4.0 diesel price per gallon = $1200 Total price with Diesel.
Or the formula is that (15,000 x $3.5) / 40 mpg = $1312. If you make mpg the variable, then the formula would be (miles x gas price) / total cost = mpg, or 15,000 x 3.5 / 1312 = 40mpg. So if you spent $1200 in diesel, the equivilant mpg for gas would be 15,000 x $3.5 / 1200 = 43.75mpg. So if you can get 44mpg in your gas car, than that's the same as getting 50mpg in a diesel.
I'd say based on your highway driving style, if you're able to obtain 50mpg in a TDI (that has an EPA estimated MPG of 42) then you can just as well obtain 44mpg in a Focus (that has an EPA estimated MPG of 40).
Of course these are just in the best highway conditions. Most folks won't be spending their time cruising down a flat highway at 60mph 100% of the time except maybe on long road trips. Average MPG is more likely what folks will get. And even calculating average mpg people get mixed up.
If a car can get 44mpg on the highway, but only 30mpg around town and if you drive 50% of the time on the highway and 50% around town, some folks would split the difference and say that their average was 37mpg...wrong.
If you drive a tank with 200 miles around town at 30mpg you'll use 6.67gal, and you'll use 4.54gal to drive 200 miles on the highway at 44mpg. That's 11.21gal used to drive 400 miles, which equals 35.68mpg, not 37mpg. It's not a big difference, but it can make more of a difference depending on the spread between your highway and city mpg. \
Even if you drive 400 miles and 90% (360miles 8.18gal) is on the highway at 44mpg, that 10% (40miles 1.33gal) of city at 30mpg will make your average mpg drop to 42.06 (9.51gal used to drive 400 miles). If your "real" city driving was only getting you 20mpg that 10% of your driving would drop your average down to 39.29mpg. So you really need to look at a lot more than just the highway mpg in the best possible conditions.
If you're prepared to spend in the low $20K range for a car to maximize mpg, you'd be better off buying a Prius II that averages 50mpg according to the EPA, (and like TDI and most other cars, people report getting better than the EPA estimates due to their driving habits) that comes in about the same price as the Golf in the below link. Of course not wouldn't be the time to buy one with the current fuel prices and situation in Japan.
http://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=101335600&veh2=101266476|hatchback&- - - veh3=101363292&veh4=101364749|hatchback&show=0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8&comparatorId=2401- - - 190
It's interesting when comparing the Fiesta to the Focus that the Fiesta actually has more front seat headroom then the Focus.
What about anyone else?
As for diesel prices versus gasoline, I read something a year or two back that looked at national averages and calculated diesel to slot in between Regular Unleaded and Premium Unleaded on a per gallon cost basis. Granted periodic and regional swings to one extreme or the other can dramatically alter the cost per mile, but even when diesel is more expensive that Premium Unleaded, it is still the least expensive fuel on a per mile basis that we can buy.
http://www.daytongasprices.com/GasPriceSearch.aspx?fuel=A&qsrch=Boston,%20MA
For Boston, the lowest regular gas was in the $3.30s and $3.80s for diesel
For Bangor, Maine, it was $4.14 for diesel and $3.50 for regular.
City gas/diesel
Denver $3.24/$3.59
Phoenix $3.35/$3.69
Atlanta $3.29/$3.55
New York $3.59/$3.99
Pittsburgh $3.37/$3.87
So I'd stick to my previous post's calculations, in that if you're getting 50mpg in a diesel, that's equal to about 44mpg in a gas car because of the extra cost of buying diesel.
Has anybody driven the Focus? We've lost focus of the thread (cheap one...)
Impressions?
For a base hatch it starts $3k more than the Fiesta; is it $3k better? Not to turn this into a comparison board that is...
I haven't seen any Focus...Focuses...Foci (?) at any dealers yet.
I've seen one with dealer plates on the road last week, as well as one I saw at the recent local auto show (but wasn't allowed to sit inside).
A little off-topic convo is fine, but we've pretty much lost direction in this discussion, so let's try to swing it back around.
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http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_a.htm
Year/Gas/Diesel/% extra for diesel
2005/2.27/2.40/5.7%
2006/2.57/2.71/5.4%
2007/2.80/2.89/3.2%
2008/3.25/3.80/16.9%
2009/2.35/2.47/5.1%
2010/2.78/2.99/7.6%
Average % cost increase for diesel since 2005 = 7.3%
So I'll admit I was wrong to calculate a 15% premium on the price of diesel when the premium is only 7.3% since 2005. So that means if you compare a diesel getting 50mpg it's equal to a gas car getting 46.5mpg because of the 7.3% additional cost for using diesel fuel.
So if you can get in the low 40s MPG with the Focus on pure highway driving, then it's pretty close to the diesel mpg if you figure in the cost of diesel.
. . . or not. I didn't realize inventory listings on dealer sites simply reflect vehicles that have been allocated, though not necessarily delivered. I just spoke to three area dealers. One had one 2012 Focus, which had arrived several hours before I called. It had already been test driven around 3 or 4 times. The rep I talked to said he did not think it would be around for further tests for much longer. He said he has received about 30 calls today for the "hot" Focus.
Normally, I might dismiss a lot of this as puffery, but it seems believeable for the 2012 Focus.