Had two hire cars this week. One to drive to Heathrow and a different one back home the following day.
Unusually I had two different cars, but two that were very close in their target market. Direct competitors I guess you would call them.
First was a Seat Leon with the 1.2 TSi engine. I liked it. Comfortable, and I found the engine brisk enough in day to day driving. My only complaint would be that the engine was a little gruff. Not intrusively though. The trip claimed 46.X mpg over the 120 or so miles I drove it, and as it sat quite happily between 70 and 80 I would be more than happy if it was my car.
For the return journey its the usual deal at Heathrow where you just jump in anything in your chosen group. I was greeted with a long row of identical Astras. I don't dislike the Astra, but they are always the asthmatic 1.6's in hire fleets, then I noticed there was one solitary Focus at the end. To my delight it was also one on the new 1.0 ecobost jobbies which I had wanted to drive. I'm not really a Ford fan, but wanted to see what this engine was like. It is a really sweet unit. Felt a fair bit more refined than the VW TSi, but the torque curve was not as linear. The Focus handles and turns in a bit sharper than the Leon but had equally as good ride quality, but the ergonomics I thought were pretty poor. The stereo had a million buttons which had been angled, but they were written as if you were sat on the left of the car, however, the fly in the ointment was economy......36 mpg.
My route back was identical, and to be fair the traffic was light so I may have driven a little quicker, but in what were two directly competing cars I expected the figures to be closer.
In summary I would be happy with either and could probably get used to the poor ergonomics in the Ford but would need to get 40+ mpg to justify it, although the cheaper cost of the Ford would offset it.
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Worth checking the start and final destination's elevation too.
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I recently had a Fiat Punto 1.3 Multijet (90bhp) on hire for a week in France. With 12000k on the clock it seemed to have aged well as it presumably had suffered the summer holiday abuse. It seemed well screwed together, with no rattles or creaks. The tyres all looked very new, which seemed a little odd in view of the mileage.
Notably lively, feeling more responsive than my 1.3 MJ Panda (75?) but the engine was notably coarser and very rough on starting. It had a eco stop/start arrangement which seemed to have a mind of its own, but always restarted as required.
Mixed autoroute (130k) and N road driving returned an indicated 22 k/l (which is about 61mpg) probably worse than the Panda, but without brim to brim difficult to comment. (Hertz do full to empty, which upsets me, since I was unable to get to the point where I could just coast into the return parking :) It did mean that I did drive it harder than I would probably do if it was my own.
Now for the bad points.
Somebody had put a length of Bungee cord in place of the steering column when it was built. Horrible at lowspeed but stiffened up nicely at speed. I guess it was the electrically assisted version, but did not check it out. Not fun to drive, (the Panda still gives me a grin when driving it - the 'spirit of the original mini', so the Fiat handling engineers have not carried the DNA thro the growing up phase.
The driving position of the lhd version is truly horrible with heavily offset pedals/steering which aggravated existing back problems, leading me to say that I could not drive it for more than 90minutes at a time.
Conclusion is that no way could I own one. However at £104 for the week it is the first time Hertz have ever been cheaper than Holiday Autos, and the back problem has not cost me any Physio bills.
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Very interesting. Spiritmonitor de ( a European economy database) gives the Focus average at 42 mpg, but interestingly a data range of typically about 30 to 50 mpg. Suggests it is very dependant on how its driven, it's pretty damn powerful for its size at 101 or 125 bhp though! I imagine the turbo has to be spinning up well to make decent torque. My 1.6 Focus- Sigma engine gives 41 mpg over 2 years of fairly gentle mixed driving as comparison.
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>> Worth checking the start and final destination's elevation too.
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No idea of the elevation at Heathrow, but I live by the coast at pretty much sea level, so unless Heathrow is below sea level then the Focus had probably the more favourable journey, but certainly no worse.
Just worked out it must have been the 125 model as it had the 6 speed box
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Heathrow is 25 meters above sea level, so that is equivalent to ~65 horizontal miles in these types of cars.
distance (miles) + (altitude change (miles)) * CF = horizontal equivalent miles
CF = ~35 for eco cars
CF = ~20 for gas guzzlers
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I hired a Fiesta 1.25 petrol in Aberdeen a few weeks ago. Generally a nice car to drive, but although the 1.25 engine has been much praised I found it had very little 'go' at low revs.
Surely the one thing a small car needs to be is nippy: a brisk step-off from rest is what I'd look for above all. My daughter's Hyundai i10 is particularly good at that.
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..............so is a CVT Jazz!
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Back to back eco test - Shiny
