[BRGT350]

I will be adding to this thread as more people get a chance to drive the 2014 Ford Fiesta ST. To start with, here is my first impression followed by my brothers.

 

[BRGT350]

No problem, Ron. I will work on getting more posted as I get more test drives done. Brandon has a really good autocross testimonial video that he is working on. We had about 6 different drivers taking the ST out on course and give us feedback.

 

[BRGT350]

Where is this MFT review we were promised?

Brandon is supposed to do the MFT review and did not get it done when he had the car in July. There is now a new update for MFT, so the one we have is obsolete. I don't know what the value is of reviewing the MFT system when it hasn't been updated. Brandon will have the car back next month and I will see if he wants to do the MFT review still. Our required content is taking longer to edit than expected, so stuff like a suspension and MFT review get put on the back burner. All effort now is on the required content that is due next week.

 

[BRGT350]

No worries. Just poking fun really. I will have a chance to try it myself soon enough I hope!

no problem. I am upset by how much time we are spending on knocking out the mission stuff and how little time we have for anything else. If there is anything specific about MFT you want to know, just ask. It is a love/hate thing about the car. When it works, it is great, when it doesn't, I want to punch the dash. I use it primarly for SiriusXM (which works flawless everytime), BlueTooth Audio (which works 75% of the time, but gets better in our Escape with each update), and making phone calls (which also works well). I have used the Nav a few times, but find my Tom-Tom easier to use. Out of the 10,000 plus voice commands, I use about 5 of them. When BlueTooth Audio doesn't work, it is highly frustrating. When you are driving, there are only a few Nav commands you can access. Personally, I would rather have the giant screen full of boost, water temp, oil temp, oil pressure, intercooler temp, lateral g-force, throttle position, and lap times.

Biggest complaint of MFT, the finger prints on the screen. You don't notice it when driving, but they are easy to spot when the car is off.

 

[BRGT350]

the latest update, which is due for our Escape, is supposed to completely overhaul the system. I have heard a lot of great things about it. I don't know if I can do the ST or not since it isn't a production car. Retail cars won't have that issue. I did get the text message alerts to work on the ST and my iPhone5. I haven't tried responding with MFT yet, but I can get a visual and audio reading of the message. That works well.

It sucks to put a massive amount of time writing, filming, editing, editing again, and more editing on a mission video only to get a few hundred views. Driving around talking without doing any editing gets thousands. For a YouTuber, anything they do gets massive views regardless of the quality. It is a major downfall of the program, but oh well. I get to help out potential ST buyers and enthusiasts along with getting the car out infront of crowds at autocrosses. That is more important to me than view counts.

 

[BRGT350]

Thanks, I try hard to be that agent.

The iPhone has always worked pretty good with Sync and MFT. The BlueTooth Audio issues seems to get people with all sorts of different phones. My wife was most excited about BlueTooth Audio in her Escape only to find that her version of MFT had all sorts of issues. After a few updates, it has been working pretty well. The good thing is that the system can be updated easily. I have done all but one update on our Escape in the garage. We had to get an oil change some sensors looked at on our Escape, so I had the dealer do one of the MFT updates. Ford also has outstanding support for the system that will work with you to get things resolved. That has been great for problems we had with the system in our Escape.