I figure since my first review was on this thread might as well not make a new thread...another very long review, read at your own risk.
On another note, I really still kinda wish I would have gotten into the Fiesta Movement. I probably wouldn't have been an amazing agent as far as the monthly missions, but I know I could have learned a whole lot more about the car after daily driving it. Seeing as how much review info I've got on the car in three test drives and a couple trips around a track... haha. Oh well, it is what it is. I definitely enjoy the short amount of time I get to test drive my dream car. One of these days I'll have one. Hopefully sooner than later. On to the review...part 2.
I was at home for the Christmas break so I decided to go show my mom the Fiesta ST to see what she thought of it. As a bonus I got to see the Green Envy in person, test out both the regular and Recaro seats, finally brought my iPod along to plug it into the system and test out the sound system, the green car was a moonroof-less car so I actually confirmed and took pictures of the mythical missing sunglass holder (never actually seen anyone take that picture yet), I tried the dual height hatch floor again and figure out the trick, and got a bunch more shots of both the green and orange.
First off, the Green Envy is an amazing color in person as well. It's unfortunately just like the Molten Orange in that it would take some pretty good cameras and camera work to really show what the colors look like in person. It was overcast today so I didn't get to see it in all it's glory with the sun out, but it's still better looking in person even with no sun. I would have to say I'm pretty torn on these two colors now, but ultimately the orange is where it's at. If the orange didn't exist, no doubt in my mind the green would be my choice.
I was surprised when the salesman told us we could go out and drive it without him. I haven't taken a ton of test drives but the salesman was always with me on the ones I've taken. I would think especially with a car like the Fiesta ST, a performance oriented car, they'd rather have someone in there with you. On the up side, because of that I took a little more time to play with stuff without feeling like the salesman was staring me down waiting for me to hurry up. Maybe it's because I looked older with a short goatee growing from the past week-ish I've been off work (this is my 5th year in college and I've been asked more than once in the past what high school I go to...), or maybe he just does that all the time.
I took the green car first because the orange car's battery was dead. The options were pretty minimal. It had the cloth seats, silver wheels, no moonroof, and I'm not positive on the navigation because we couldn't locate an SD card for it and I didn't check the window sticker. I sat down on the regular cloth seats. They weren't absolutely terrible, but they definitely weren't really made to be in a car that does good cornering. One thing I looked at as soon as I got in was the taller roof because of the lack of a moonroof as well as the lack of a sunglass holder. Up to that point I hadn't ever seen anyone who'd taken a picture of the headliner of one without a moonroof to show that it's really missing, so I had to see for myself.
The rear headroom is greatly increased as well. If you regularly have average sized adults in the rear seats, they will tank you for not buying one with a moonroof.
I finally remembered to bring my iPod and a cable to plug it in so I could test it out on the MFT system and see how good or bad the speakers sounded. As soon as the iPod connected it started playing no problem. Once I got going I turned up the music a bit and I was actually kinda impressed with the amount of bass produced without a subwoofer. That's not to say a subwoofer wouldn't complement it all being as I have a full audio system in my current car, but I guess if that's really the only drawback to moving from my ZX2 to the Fiesta ST, I'm doing pretty good. I didn't play around with the MFT a whole lot, and I wish the navigation SD card was inserted so I could see the nav in action, but unfortunately even with everything you want to try out on a test drive the actual driving is the biggest part of it.
With the controversial dual height hatch floor and people not being able to get it down on the bottom level...I played with it a bit since I didn't have a salesman staring me down wondering what on earth this idiot was doing. I found that pushing the floor all the way under the pegs poses the problem that people are having in that it pushes the floor too far down under the spare tire level so you drop the floor and it gets hung up on the spare tire and won't go down anymore. The trick is to push it under the pegs, let it drop on the spare, then pull it out of the pegs as you let it go down under the pieces that hold the floor up near the hatch. You gotta put a little force into it because it's got rubber where it contacts the pegs and it's a tight squeeze. Keep pulling it out and it will eventually even out and drop down on top of the spare tire. That's the lower level. Without the full sized spare I don't think you'd have an issue getting it to the lower level. Several pictures will be provided down after the "review". I still prefer it on the upper level to store stuff down below. that I don't want sitting on top of the false floor.
On another note, I saw many people up North who have to defrost their cars in the morning before work are complaining about the horn honking when you get out of the car because it lets you know the key is outside and the problem being they don't like getting honked at when they know they key is outside the car and the car is on and their neighbors and family that are still asleep get a little annoyed at the honking. But the deal was not all Fiestas on here seem to do the honking. So I did a deliberate test on both cars to see what these cars were going to do. Not only did they not honk, but I watched the MFT screen and there was no interior chime or message on the screen as I opened the door, walked out with the key in pocket, and shut the door completely. I did a couple tests to make sure one wasn't a fluke. I walked all around the cars with them running and all doors closed key in pocket taking pictures of them. No honk, and at that point even if there was a message and interior chime, it wouldn't be seen or heard. I have test driven three Fiesta STs, none of them honked upon exit, only one chimed and showed a message on the MFT screen... I have no idea why some do and some don't. While I don't exit my car a lot when it's going, I wouldn't mind getting one that didn't honk though. haha
As far as the driving went, I saw the hill holder in action again as I let off the brake and expected to roll back a bit on the hill and didn't. Both Fiestas obviously drive the same. Still have plenty of pick up. I stayed in residential areas so I didn't get past 4th gear. The Fiesta still has plenty of power for me. I got in my car later to do a WOT acceleration and was disappointed.
