Just had a week's rental of a 2012 Focus diesel, and swapped it for another car yesterday, which turned out to be a 2013 Focus... petrol. What a difference!
The diesel focus - 1.6TDCi Zetec - was nippy enough but I seemed to be constantly having to change gear. Do we really need 6-speed manual gearboxes on everyday cars? The diesel engine would not pull from low revs/too high a gear. Gave the car an agricultural feel too.
By contrast, the petrol Focus sounds and feels much more refined. Can't even hear the engine at tick-over - I have to check the rev counter to see if it's running - and the engine is much more tractable. I'm only changing gear half as often (identical 6-speed manual). Am presuming it's a 1.8? The trim level looks one better than a Zetec, with slightly bigger wheels and tinted rear glass.
The petrol car looks far better IMHO in it's dark blue paint, as opposed to the generic silver of least week's diesel version.
Based upon this back-to-back test, it would be petrol for me 9 times out of 10, based upon refinement, ease of driving, and comfort.
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Doyou get the eco boost engines? I had one on hire just before xmas and was impressed - only the paperwork really gave the engine size away
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I don't like small diesels, those that I've driven anyway for the reason you mention. They seem to need a lot of gearbox changing which sort of defeats the point to my mind. A diesel wants to be 1.9 or 2.0 minimum. I would imagine a 2.0 diesel Focus would be great.
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>> I would imagine a 2.0 diesel Focus would be great.
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It is, or was when I owned one.
Last edited by: Uncle Albert on Sat 1 Feb 14 at 19:19
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Wow. Checked the paperwork: the petrol Focus is the 1.0 Ecoboost! Very very impressed.
Only one slight flaw - at -ahem - very high speed on the motorway in the wee small hours, the fuel consumption seemed pretty alarming. Could almost see the needle going down!
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Funny that, as I thought the same. Giving it the beans It was no better on fuel than a 1.8 would have been, and not really convinced when driven gently it was much better, however, the VW 1.2 TSi unit drives pretty similarly but gave me far better MPG
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Just filled it up for 56 quid, which equates to just over 38mpg. Not great in the cold light of day is it? Message to self: slow down on the motorway!
Still love the engine though!
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"Just filled it up for 56 quid, which equates to just over 38mpg."
Not too bad, surely, for a family car that's been thrashed down the motorway?
My Focus II is 2-litre petrol (no longer available, I believe) and I get around 38 mpg on shortish journeys with a fair bit of mimsing. However, driving at around 70 mph on a long motorway journey gets me well over 40. As an experiment, I mimsed on the motorway (nothing extreme - just drove at around 60 - 65 mph) last autumn and got over 50 mpg.
However, if the 1litre Ecoboost engine can't do significantly better there doesn't seem much point to it, in real life. I thought the whole point was that you get the oomph if you're prepared to sacrifice the consumption a bit, but if economy is your priority, you can mimse and save money.
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Funny that, as I thought the same. Giving it the beans It was no better on fuel than a 1.8 would have been...
I wouldn't expect it to be. Unless it's found a way to make combustion radically more efficient, the engine's consumption when worked hard will be determined by the amounts of car and air it has to shift. Even 'driven gently' but still at some speed, that should be largely true.
The gains of a small engine ought to be in stop-start traffic, where it has less cylinder volume to fill just to go nowhere.
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Ford Focus III - A tale of 2 Focii - diesel & petrol - mikeyb
