Ford Fiesta MK7 ST Owners Review

I absolutely love this car, I’ve owned the car for just over a year, covered almost 20k miles and still find it so much fun to drive.

The eager 1.6 Ecoboost is an awesome engine. The low end torque is what makes it so eager, boost kicks in pretty early as it has a small turbo so there’s barely any lag and gives a good shove down low but does seem to start to die down near the top of the rev range but that’s normally fixable with a tune. Rightly so… I got the warranty friendly MP215 package by Mountune fitted at my local Pro Ford dealer after around 4 months of ownership, it cost me £699 to be fitted. It consists of a new intake, filter and a tune. This makes the engine a lot more exciting to drive, it improves the low end torque that was already great and makes it a bit better at the end of the rev range.

215PS isn’t exactly the most powerful engine in the word but it’s definitely enough for a Fiesta and means it can keep up with most cars on the road including bigger engined cars that are substantially more powerful.

The 1.6 Ecoboost is linked to a great 6 speed manual gearbox. Every shift just feels amazing, it just effortlessly clicks into place, you can feel it click into position, it feels so mechanical and makes it so involving to drive. The clutch has a nice weight to it as well which makes the gear changes even more involving without being too heavy to daily drive.

The sound isn’t the best in the world to be fair. It’s OK and sporty but I don’t think it sounds as good as it should when comparing it with the rest of the car. It seems to lack character compared with other hot hatches including the previous generation ST so I decided to get the Mountune cat back fitted around 2 months after getting the MP215 package fitted. It sounds pretty quiet, almost like the standard exhaust when driving light footed but when driving a bit harder, it sounds really nice. It gives it a deeper, more burble like sound than standard without sounding like a boy racer. This is the way the Fiesta ST should have left the factory. The sound symposer is probably more intrusive than the exhaust, it can sometimes get a little annoying, I would rather hear the natural sound of the engine, intake, turbo and exhaust instead of an artificial version. Cruising at 70mph, it’s pretty quiet but anything over 85/90mph (when I’m in Germany on the Autobahn, obviously) it does start to get a bit annoying and droney, especially on long journeys. I’ve actually recently ordered a sound symposer delete from AET Motorsport so I plan on installing it soon, this should hopefully resolve the issue.

UPDATE: I’ve installed the symposer delete and it sounds so much better, I can hear the natural sounds of the exhaust and intake and it’s a lot quieter when driving normally.

The fuel economy CAN be good but when I’m driving it, it just encourages me to put my foot down, I just can’t help it, it’s like a drug. When I do drive sensibly, I can achieve around 40mpg but it’s currently at an average of around 32. It costs around £50 to fill the tank and I normally get around 300 miles of a mix between town driving, motorway driving and hooning.

The steering is very direct and responsive, the car is light so it just goes exactly where you want it and torque vectoring makes it handle so well through the bends. Lightly push the throttle through the bend and it will keep the car stable, lifting off brings the back end out so it can be very playful. The steering is electronically assisted so you don’t get as much feel as you would with fully hydraulic steering but enough feel to know what the wheels are doing. As it’s electronically assisted, it does make it artificially heavy which is good when you’re driving in a sporty manner but can sometimes feel a little too heavy when driving normally.

The standard brakes are pretty good for daily driving and fast road driving but I wouldn’t say they would be good for track driving as they do fade easily. The standard Bridgestone Potenza tyres are good in the dry but poor in the wet so I’ve started using the Mitchellin Pilot Sport 3 tyres which totally transform the feel of the car and are outstanding in the wet. They give me the confidence that I never got with the Bridgestones.

Now let’s start with the interior; The Recaro seats are brilliant, they are solid and supportive so they keep you completely still whilst cornering and they look great. However, my girlfriend doesn’t feel the same way. At first she hated the seats and could never get comfy but that may be partly to do with her recently having spinal fusion surgery so she couldn’t relax into them properly. Although, I’ve never had a complaint from anyone else. The main down side to the seats is that they are very difficult to keep clean, the grey fabric part of the seat gets stained so easily, it’s come to the point that shampooing them is basically part of my regular wash routine.

The rest of the interior, is, well… a Fiesta. The dash board is plastic, the door cards are plastic, the centre console is plastic, the arm rest is plastic - everything is plastic. Even though cheap materials have been used, it’s still a reasonably nice place to be, it’s well designed and laid out in a way that it doesn’t feel as cheap as it actually is and still seems modern.

There’s one thing that really annoys me about the design of the interior, there’s just a random little hole that’s too small to store anything. It’s too small for a phone or a wallet - the only thing I can think of that would fit in there would be a small chocolate bar like a Freddo so it’s just useless. I just don’t understand why Ford designed it this way - what are you supposed store in this useless little hole?

UPDATE: I’ve actually just went out to my car and tested it with a small Mars Bar and it appears to fit perfectly. Thanks Ford - that’s one thing I really needed in my car… a f**king Mars Bar holder.

There’s one thing that I can’t say anything good about. The infotainment system… my 2014 Fiesta ST comes with Ford SYNC 2 which is terrible. It’s so clunky and hard to use. Mine is the ST3 so it comes standard with Sat-Nav, it’s not actually that bad, it does the job but I much prefer using Google Maps or Waze so I’ve only used it a few times. The US spec STs get SYNC 3 (or can upgrade, I think) and a touch screen but the euro ones don’t get that choice unfortunately, we’re stuck with SYNC 2. I normally use Spotify with SYNC. It works, sometimes… When I get into my car and turn the ignition on, the Bluetooth connects and Spotify starts automatically, sounds good right? Well yeah, when it actually works. I normally get welcomed with ‘Cannot start Spotify’, I then need to press the Find Mobile Apps button, it will then say ‘Additional Apps Found’, well it’s supposed to but sometimes it doesn’t find any so I need to press it a few times before it finds it, then I need to open Spotify, wait for it to connect and then I can finally listen to music. If it’s a short journey, I’ve probably nearly arrived by the time it comes on.

In my opinion, I think the Fiesta ST is one of the best looking hot hatches around - even if it is one of the cheapest and most dated (it definitely doesn’t look dated). I love the aggressive lines and stance of the ST - it looks so bad ass but can still get away with being a ‘Fiesta’. The paintwork on it can look good, the Frozen White paint on my ST does look good after being clayed, polished and waxed but normally lacks some depth. To be fair, most white cars normally do. The paint seems so thin, it chips so easily and as the front bumper is black plastic, any stone chip shows up so much against the white paintwork so it definitely requires a lot of attention. I do quite a lot of miles which results in a lot of stone chips. To cover them up I’ve started using a touch up system called Dr. Color Chip - It’s easier than normal touch up systems as you don’t need to do any sanding or priming and still get really good results.

The rear spoiler is slightly larger and sticks out more which makes it look more aggressive than the standard Fiesta. The only annoying thing is, the way it’s designed, when it rains it forms a small puddle on top of it and when you set off, the dirty rain water will hit the rear window.

Back to the handling - The ride of the Fiesta ST is very firm so you feel everything on the road, it may not be for some people but I don’t mind a firm ride (that’s what she said), I’d probably have a different opinion if I was the passenger but when you’re driving it, the firmness makes it handle well and gives you limited body roll which makes it so much fun. If someone’s in the rear seats and you’re putting your foot down round a roundabout or bend, they WILL get thrown about… The driver and passenger are OK as they are held in by the Recaro’s. I’ve found that you really need to take it easy when someones in the back.

As I didn’t mind the firm ride, I opted for the Mountune 30mm lowering springs the same time I got the cat back exhaust. They (obviously) lowered the car visually and made it look a lot more aggressive. As for the ride? It actually made it a bit better, it doesn’t actually feel as harsh as before and it feels like the car sticks to the road like glue and just loves getting thrown round bends.

The handling comes into it’s own whenever I find a nice B-road or mountain pass. I live in Scotland so there are a lot of nice back roads nearby. The bests ones are the tight, twisty ones - this is where the torque vectoring is at it’s best and just pulls you round the corner with ease. The most fun I’ve had on the road is on a road that gets called ‘Dukes Pass’ - It starts just after Callander and goes round a Loch and up round a hill until you get to a little town called Aberfoyle. It has lots of tight bends, hairpins, inclines and declines - it’s very technical and twisty so 9 times out of 10 you will be behind a bus going about 20MPH but when there’s no one in front of you, it’s one of the most fun roads in Scotland.

If anyone lives near here and hasn’t been, I definitely recommend you go… Here’s a video of an RS4 on this same road. This obviously isn’t my video but it demonstrates how fun the road can be.

The Fiesta ST does have a bit of a reputation. Your average sub-human will probably just think it’s a standard Fiesta which is good as most coppers think the same (I’ve never actually been pulled over in this car, maybe I’m just lucky?). When people actually know what an ST is and what it’s capable of, they will normally always want to race you. I often get cars like BMWs or Audi’s tailgating me, well - that’s kinda normal for Audi’s but not because they want passed, because the want to race… I normally just let them pass but sometimes (when I’m in Mexico), I put my foot down and love to see the look on their face when their 30-40K car get’s embarrassed by a Fiesta.

The reliability of the Fiesta ST has been insanely good so far. I bought the car at around 16,000 miles and in the year I’ve owned the car, it’s sky rocketed to over 35,000 miles. Nothing major has went wrong. I’ve replaced consumables such as tyres, brake pads and liquids and obviously serviced it but the Ecoboost engine and transmission seem to be very robust. There are a number of people running hybrid turbos with stage 3/4 maps with power of around the 300BHP mark with stock internals and stock clutch which appear to be running pretty well.

All in all - The Fiesta ST is an amazing all round car. It has great performance, especially for the money. It has pretty good tuning potential. It’s a practical car with a decent size boot and reasonably cheap to run. It’s one of the best handling and looking hot hatches on the market and it just makes you want to drive fast all of the time. It does have some niggles and annoying traits but they are completely forgotten about when you’re in the drivers seat as it’s so fun to drive.

Probably one of the best cars you can buy for under £20k on the market today - as it’s the end of the production for this generation Fiesta, brand new ST2’s can be picked up for around £16k which is £3k lower than the RRP

This has been my first ever car review so well done if you’ve made it this far!