Anyone tried one of these?

I’ve got a golf with the 1.4 turbo engine at the moment which is great, but I need to change to a new car that is bigger, and the focus estate is quite a bit cheaper than the golf.
How does the ford 1.0 ecoboost compare to the VAG 1.4tsi. The performance figures look similar (the 125ps version), but what’s like in the real world. I also wonder if it is really that economical? The 1.4 is great in that respect – get 45mpg on average.

is 45mpg good for such a small engine with a sneeze for a torque curve ?

focus is a big car to haul round with 125bhp – probably be slower than my van with its 79bhp 😀 (but a descent torque curve for load lugging )

Driven one, and they are absolutely fantastic, when you consider it’s a 1.0 Ltr, 3 cylinder, downside is the fuel economy is absolutely terrible, 35 MPG, Ford do say though that this will get better with more miles in the engine… (the one I drove had 10 miles on the clock)

focus is a big car to haul round with 125bhp

Nahh. I’ve got a 100bhp petrol Focus estate and it’s fine.

my 1.8 focus is only 125 hp and it’s fast enough to keep up with traffic.

plus i bet this engine is probably a fair bit lighter

i take it back – just read about it -new tech – triple variable valve timing and 150Ftlbs torque on “overtake” boost

autocar liked it. although noted the YMMV mpg – stating if you understood how to drive the engine you can and they did get 50mpg – where as another crew got mid 30s ….

How much bigger is a focus compared to a golf when it comes to boot space? Not a lot difference is there? I may be wrong.

You’ll get far worse economy than with, say, a 1.6 diesel, but it’s a nice thing to drive, it has to be said.

I managed to get 40mpg on a 10-mile drive, on which I’d normally get around 50mpg from my Passat. New car, might improve a bit with running in, but I doubt it would change much.

It certainly didn’t feel like a 1.0 engine – subjectively, it was at least as quick as a 1.8 petrol Focus I drove a year back, and it revved nicely. Overall, very nice, just not very economical; as that’s its main purpose, it seems a bit pointless.

trail_rat – Member

focus is a big car to haul round with 125bhp – probably be slower than my van with its 79bhp (but a descent torque curve for load lugging )

PMSL people these days have no flecking idea, 125bhp it twice what the car needs to drive at perfectly repectabe speeds.

In another 10 years you will be telling use the anything less than 300bhp in a Yaris is hardly going to pull a new age traveller off your sister.

90 bhp is more than enough in a car that size, unfortunatly power sells cars even tho only Racing drivers really need it.

I managed to get 40mpg on a 10-mile drive, on which I’d normally get around 50mpg from my Passat. New car, might improve a bit with running in, but I doubt it would change much.

You might be surprised. I remember my petrol fiesta improving from around 35 to 45mpg once it had done some miles.

I know Ford have invested a lot of time and money into the Ecoboost range of engines. The proof is in the drving and the cost of running.

I would suggest driving one to see if it is something you might like, this is generaly the direction a lot of the manufacturers are taking now as it is cheaper than the hyrbid technology currently on offer.

I would hope the drive is more dynamic than a diesel engine, otherwise there is not a great advantage offered?

Interesting about the MPG data. I was expecting much higher numbers than that. They do point out that 40mpg petrol is cheaper than 40mpg diesel but even so, I thought high 50s.

My gf works is in management at Ford so we both get cars which we have to change every 3 months / 3000 miles. I currently have 1.6 Focus TDCI which is nice and has averaged 51mpg since I’ve had it. I was planning on getting this 1.0 next time. Not sure I’ll bother now.

lol at stevewhyte –

i drive a 70 odd bhp van and a 89bhp land rover – both are dangerous when turning onto dual carridgeways(that dont have slip roads) and i cause tailbacks at junctions due to needing alot of space to accelerate to traffic speed- my next car will have a real engine in it im afraid (or rather i intend to put a real engine in the land rover and get rid of the van…. )

the current 1.4 petrol focus is a bollox to drive with 5 people in.

used to have a 115bhp petrol car that was great – till you stuck 5 adults inside it and 2 bikes on the back – then it was slower than my current van with a full pay load !

if you are 1 man in a car then yes itll be fine – if its to be a family car and spend its time loaded then youll want more power to pull the weight about.

but of course im wrong – you know best and because it worked in 1973 when average road speeds were lower then it must be right in 2012

How much bigger is a focus compared to a golf when it comes to boot space? Not a lot difference is there? I may be wrong.

Switching to an estate from a hatchback. I’m considering the focus as it’s cheaper than the golf (there weren’t any small turbo petrols available in the focus when I got the golf).

autocar liked it. although noted the YMMV mpg – stating if you understood how to drive the engine you can and they did get 50mpg – where as another crew got mid 30s ….

I’m probably quite good at this since I’m used to driving the 1.4 turbo (got to use the torque like a diesel – go over 3k rpm and the fuel economy drops markedly), and mange to match the suggested combined mpg for the car (which is a miracle frankly – never managed that in any other car – previous fords have been well below the official mpg, which is partly why I’m suspicious of the mpg figures given for the 1.0 ecoboost).

focus is a big car to haul round with 125bhp

I think that’s rubbish, personally. I have a 105bhp Prius and that’s quite fast enough for merging and overtaking. It’s no good for drag racing of course although I hesitate to say you can’t have fun in it. A nice windy country road can be fun in any car, no matter what petrolheads will tell you 🙂

The principle behind this kind of engine (both the VW and the Ford) is that they are small engines with an extra turbo boost when you need it. So if you can drive nice and gently without using the boost all the time you’ll do well. I would guess that the best way to drive it is to accelerate reasonably briskly up to speed then be really gentle on the throttle once there.

I’ve heard people moan about 35mpg on those VW TSI engines and other people rave about 55mph – seems very sensitive to technique.

I would honestly take the claimed mpg as fabrication and lies from Ford on any of their petrol engines.

In general I’ve found any small petrol engine gets worked ‘hard’ to make progress in normal driving so you don’t drive ‘gently’ that they/the manufacturer achieved in their test cycles.

I have 1.2 TSI 105bhp in my Roomster; get between 45 and 50mpg depending on the roads. BTW, I chose this over the new CMAX ecoboost as seemed a better overall package for the money.

This power discussion is quite interesting. I own a 1.6 Focus Estate which I think is great if you don’t care about impressing anyone and just want a car that moves and doesn’t cost much.
It’s dog slow up long hills when loaded though but if I’m doing 50 in the slow lane being overtaken by Audis doing 80 I’m not particularly fussed. Never would have said that its lack of power is dangerous.

“It’s dog slow up long hills when loaded though but if I’m doing 50 in the slow lane being overtaken by Audis doing 80 I’m not particularly fussed. Never would have said that its lack of power is dangerous. “

i was using my diesel van and landrover with almost half the power as an extreme example – i mean as stated by the guy above its perfectly acceptable to have half of 125bhp to get a car up to a reasonable speed – if you have 3 weeks to spare and no mates to travel with you.

my mrs has a 1.4 petrol golf and you have to make it sing for its supper with 2 bikes in a weekends camping kit and 2 people to do the same speeds(50 or so in 3rd gear ) as my van up hills(like glenshee last weekend) which you rarely have to change below 4th to get up hill the same hills – both have the same top speed of 70….. and it aint much better than the van pulling out of junctions it just has the benifit of needing to change gear less quickly cause the red lines further away !

my previous 2 cars were 1.6s and they just coped much better when loaded when compared to the road speeds of other cars.

next time ill either buy a smaller car so i dont load it with stuff – quite like the look of the yaris or even the aygo….

or big engine and an auto box.

i dont do alot of miles now. (where as i was doing about 130 a day before)

claimed mpg

It’s not claimed MPG, for the millionth time.

It’s the results of a standard test. However most manufacturers (but not all) tune their cars to ace the test and not perform well in the real world, which is indeed disingenuous.

I’m finding this discussion of relative power interesting too.

Back in the late 80’s I had a Fiat Panda with a 1000cc petrol engine. According to the brochure it put out a magnificent 44bhp. I put 70k miles on it in 4 years and it was fine on a long run and could be quite good fun round town. IIRC I used to get about 45-50 mpg. It wasn’t fast by any streach of the imagination but it certainly wasn’t dangerously underpowered and since the speed limits haven’t changed since then a car with that power to weight ratio should be fine today.

However, I think some people’s (mine included) perceptions of the power required to make a car move is somewhat inflated nowadays.

“since the speed limits haven’t changed since then a car with that power to weight ratio should be fine today.”

you know as well as i do limits have not changed but average road speeds outside of jams has risen quite a bit ….

Its ‘official’ however it is also claimed as the tests are carried out in a controlled environment on a rolling road to guarantee consistency.

Therefore its definitely claimed as the tests go nowhere near tarmac.

wombat? How can you compare? Cars of all classes have grown insize and more importantly weight.

I’m probably quite good at this since I’m used to driving the 1.4 turbo (got to use the torque like a diesel – go over 3k rpm and the fuel economy drops markedly), and mange to match the suggested combined mpg for the car (which is a miracle frankly – never managed that in any other car – previous fords have been well below the official mpg, which is partly why I’m suspicious of the mpg figures given for the 1.0 ecoboost).

I think you’re right – treat it as a low-revs car, drive it like a diesel, ad you might (note: that’s might) get closer to the official numbers, but frankly, I doubt it. And anyway, if you have to drive it like a diesel, why not *get* a diesel; for all it’s cleverness, the 1.0 I drove had nowhere near the low-down punch of modern 1.6-2.0 diesels, all of which would be a lot quicker in ordinary driving. It feels swift if you rev it, but if that hammers the ecomony, what’s the point?

I used to work at Ford, and had any number of fleet cars from zero miles (the joys of Frog Island!). I never saw that much of an improvement as miles went on, though being fair, most went back with just 5-6000 miles on them. Unless this engine’s very different, I’d still expect it to be an at-best 40mpg car on average. Not bad, obviously, and a far cry from the 25mpg average you used to get from petrol cars even a decade back, but still a good deal less than you’d get from a Focus 1.6 TDCI – they get over 50mpg as a real-world long-term average.

That said, it’s waaaaay more refined than any diesel (BMW 730 and Audi A8 V8 aside) I’ve driven.

Fords in general are shit on fuel.

I managed to get 40mpg on a 10-mile drive, on which I’d normally get around 50mpg from my Passat. New car, might improve a bit with running in, but I doubt it would change much.

So it was running cold for most of the time.

Fords in general are shit on fuel.

Rubbish. Drivers are shit on fuel, not cars. I bet I could average 50mpg out of one of these new Eco petrol engines without breaking sweat. I’ve had a one off 49mpg out of the one I’ve got!
1.6 petrol Focus estate. REAL figures not trip computer BS, which is typically 2mpg higher:
30,000+ miles of records. Check the overall average (which has slipped recently as my driving has changed) and check the high points on the graph! 🙂

Untitled by PeterPoddy, on Flickr

Its ‘official’ however it is also claimed

They are not claiming that’s what you will get, so it’s not claimed fuel economy.

Drivers are shit on fuel, not cars

It’s quite obviously both! Both are important, but even you aren’t going to get 60mpg from a Hummer H1 are you?

Rubbish. Drivers are shit on fuel, not cars.

Really? I think you will find if you compare them to other marques they are worse, they always have been, but being a Ford driver I guess figuring that out would be a bit difficult for you.

The old Focus ST170 for example, 22 mpg urban from a NA 2 litre, are you ****** serious?

if you have to drive it like a diesel, why not *get* a diesel

Fair point, but it is much quieter and smoother than a diesel, and you have the option of more fun with revs if you feel like it (oh, and in the case of my golf at least, it was much cheaper in the first place than the diesel).

Re: ford mpg – official combined for my old mk2 focus tdci was about 60mpg, but I usually got 45-50. Official combined for the golf tsi is 45, and I get about 45. Actually, checking here – http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/ – it does seem that VW / VAG cars are in general a little more realistic in their figures.

There are lots of reports too of the Fiat twin air engines being very variable for MPG depending on how they are driven. BHP also depends on where a car is driven. In cities 50bhp is probably fine.

The government official fuel figures are compared to real world driving on the WhatCar True MPG website. The biggest differences are usually the small “economic” petrol cars.

I would honestly take the claimed mpg as fabrication and lies from Ford on any of their petrol engines.

Indeed. I regularly exceed the stated figure.

That would make sense – the govt test doesn’t cover stuff like serial roundabouts on dual carriageways in nsl, or thrashing the nuts off your 1.2 to get up to speed on the motorway.

The clio I hired this week for instance was seriously under-geared. So under about 50mph it was lovely, but at 70mph it was screaming away.

Conversely the Mazda 2 I had in Finland a couple of years ago had really high gears, I think it was 6 speed in fact, which meant you could only drive along the flat in top gear!

skywalker – Member
Really? I think you will find if you compare them to other marques they are worse, they always have been, but being a Ford driver I guess figuring that out would be a bit difficult for you.

The old Focus ST170 for example, 22 mpg urban from a NA 2 litre, are you ****** serious?

Is that the official figure or your own? If the former, perhaps that engine simply does not suit the test (or at least not optimised for it in the same was as the normal versions are).

Indeed. I regularly exceed the stated figure.

Funnily enough even though I’m not a VAG fan at all I regularly exceeded VW’s stated figures.

Fords, never. PP you say your 1,6 petrol regularly gets 40mpg? Are those figures generated by the trip computer itself through a plug in or by you inputting the data into a phone app?

My 1.6 petrol averaged 30mpg. It was fully serviced as well.

Interms of driving style I check and adapt. It still comes out the c.same.

Currently driving a Citroen C1 (65mpg?) – I’m getting 40 best. My old Aygo was the same.

Unless a car has good torque figures I’d say you wouldnt get near the claimed figures unless you drove sedately.

So it was running cold for most of the time.

Yep, it certainly was. The point is that the same journey – from cold – in my Passat would get me a 10mpg (or 25%) improvement, so it’s a fair enough comparison. If anything, it’s favouring the smaller engine, which will presumably warm up a good deal faster.

Fords, never. PP you say your 1,6 petrol regularly gets 40mpg? Are those figures generated by the trip computer itself through a plug in or by you inputting the data into a phone app?

My 1.6 petrol averaged 30mpg. It was fully serviced as well.

I had a 1.6 Fiesta. I averaged 45 -50 mpg. Official mpg was 38.

TBH I’d question the idea of a 1.0 ecoboost in an estate depending on what you’re doing with it.

I’ve just got a new focus estate with the 1.6TDI engine, and it’s not great. Fully loaded it’s rubbish on MPG with no real power, If it hadn’t have been for the tax incentives I wouldn’t have bothered with it and got the bigger engine. Granted it’s not worn in yet and it gets 51mpg ish with just me, but it’s normally 4 up with kit inside and on the roof!

I’d suggest a 1.8/2.0 diesel would be a better bet if buying privately as they’re more suited and should return a better MPG – if company car then the smaller engines can really save a few quid all round.

I think the little engine would be fine in the hatch or similar smaller car. However, if you’re taking the estate because you just want to get a dog in the back and not really use it for load carrying then should be good.

PeterPoddy – what’s the app your using to monitor your car costs? I’m after similar.

30,000+ miles of records

Beginner! 57,000+ miles on my current car, 100,000 miles on its predecessor!

PMSL people these days have no flecking idea, 125bhp it twice what the car needs to drive at perfectly repectabe speeds.

It has 89bhp per ton and does 0-60 in double figures (11.4sec), what a ridiculous statement. Clearly you have no ****** idea.