REVIEW: Ford Puma ST - Is this the future of Hot hatches? Or the last of a dying breed.
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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2023
- Words: gtspirit.com/2023/06/20/ford-...
The Ford Puma ST is a strange mix of crossover, and drivers car. Is that a good or a bad thing? Should you buy one? And what is the future of the Hot Hatch?
Like the content enough to hand over actual monies?
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We bought a 3 year old used one. Reasons: Green color great! Big fun in curvy mountain roads. Can be used as a small family car. It can be driven to work with as less as 5,5l/100km! Basically it is almost 2-3 cars in one. We do not regret the choice at all!
Thanks for the insight! I’ll here’s obviously a big market for these things. I’m just glad Ford Performance is still a big part of the brand and they can still tune a chassis so well.
Is it an ecoboost? How well is it holding up?
@@supernova6553 So far fine. But it got just 15000km on...
@@cs-electronic ecoboosts are not that good from what i hear from mechanics.
another major smile factor i constantly get when im in my puma st or my fiesta st is the engine. Id be rolling behind a 911, and the sound of the turbos, or the exhaust pops, everyone turns looks sees the 911 and then is like wait what??? that little thing makes THAT noise, holy shit. the sound of the 1.5 eb engine is just fantastic
I think the puma st is aimed at people that have small family's but realise fiesta st is too small for there needs so get the puma st for daily chores, taking kids too school etc, then have fun on back roads blasting along , almost like a grown up family man's do it all car, I think it's aimed at people in 30s and 40s even 50s that still have the boy racer in them lol, beautiful sounding an looking car, I'm hoping to order one at end of year , either grey matter colour or fantastic red colour, they don't do mean green anymore which is the best looking colour 👍🏴
oh and the problem with the foot tail gate open option is the same problem with the rear view camera, "dirt" if you wipe the sensors it will work fine, but then you drive they get dirty and seeing or getting the boot open with your foot, yeah not so good, would have been better if it was a kick button,
Just buying a 23 plate. Got a bargain. Full spec including performance pack. 3500 miles 23k
Great review! Keep up the good work!
really great video dude, cheers for posting.
Good review 👍. We’ve got a Puma ST-Line as family car (my daily is a Stelvio Quadrifoglio, and my ‘toy’ is a MK3 Focus RS), and looking at changing our ST-Line for 24plate car. Had an extended test in an ST, and am arranging one in an i20N.
Very interested to hear your comments and observations on the i20N.
Hope you upload your i20N video soon.
👍👍
I do not get how you wouldn't know who this car is aimed at! You said it yourself, it is a fiesta st underneath, with the added bonus of more boot space, more cabin space and more head space, it is aimed at anyone who doesn't want to drive a shoebox in wheels nowadays (which is the majority), it is aimed at myself and my wife who wants a nippy/fun car with space to do the school run in-between. But if I was ten years younger when I was driving an astra vxr around, I'd be going for the puma st still for its sporty looks, amazing seats and that mechanical LSD as standard! If I wanted a mechanical LSD back in the day id have to go out of my way to retro fit. To me the price is a little irrelevant, who pays the full retail price for a car now anyway! 99% of people finance a car and trade it in after a couple of years anyway!
Good points there Nathan! Good to hear you’re enjoying it. As I say, I’m just glad Ford has made it !
it is the future of the small hot hatch, so this car is for people who want a sporty fast hot hatch but need boot space, its basically all about the boot space, she wanted an mx5 but needs to have boot space and fit her husband and kid. she tried the fiesta (which in my case is perfect) but not enough boot space for her, and so she settled with the Puma ST, best of both worlds, the i20n / i30n (for for a few bucks more) project c, same category performance wise not the same practicallity.
as an owner of the 2020 Hybrid Puma and now an owner of the latest and last Fiesta STx, the extra 5k goes towards the electric boot, the folding mirrors, the glass roof, fully auto windows and a larger size, off of which the fiesta does not have, "waight savings" only the drivers side window auto rolls down, but it is push hold to roll up, all other windows do not have auto down or up. (thats 600bucks a door. the glass roof is 1k, the auto folding mirrors are 600 each. and in someparts of europe, like where i am, switzerland, the doors have an auto door protection, when you open them a motor pushes out a plastic thing that wraps around the door. you get bigger disks and "i think a 6 pod" or definatly a 4 pod caliper.
lol if you dont like the hard ride get the hybrid puma, (this was my waiting car, i waited ages for the fiesta,) this is where my love for the puma stems from, at first i was like (f*** a hybrid, no. for the love of god", but very quickly i fell in love it, the boost from the electric motors, great craic. id fill my 1ltr gas tank like once or twice a month, and this is coming from somone who can down 30k and just under a year. super economical. and the ride in the hybrid puma vs the st, is softer.
I can tell you one person who its for, My best mates wife, (ex mechanic, has worked in the car industry all her life, she is a crash inshurance evaluation expert now, she tracks, races you name it. now she has a kid and needs space for kid, and a little boot space, with the same performace you get from the brilliant ecobooste stx engine. And she opted for puma over the STx Focus. because of its layout, alot of people dont realise but the boot is actully really more functional then it looks, you also missed that in this review, the boot board has two placments, flush with the openeing, one step down, or off completly. the ammount of applications that can be used from these configs is amazing, at first glance people are like, ehhh bit small but what they fail to see is "were all used to short long boots, and not short deep boots
so one of the waiting points for me was to move away from the recaro and get the new FP STX seats, they are out of this world good. absolutly functional on a track, my mind is never drawn to the seat, you sink in. I have frequently been in my fiesta for 10+ hours touring the mountain passes of italy france, the black forest and the peaks of switzerland, no complaints, fantastically comfortable. my only complaint is the seat rack that the seat is mounted on in the fiesta is a tiny bit to high for me, i will modifiy it so the bottom back reclines a little lower to the floor, but thats just a racing thing, as a daily, the seating position is brilliant
also mention the steering wheel, its a focused wheel, with a 2.5 turning curve, you can take hairpins with out crossing over your arms.
I totally agree, the "short throw" shifter is not short at all. I am quite used to the shortness of an ND MX5. but you can fix this for 50 bucks, just pick up a short throw bracket, stupidly easy to install, and it shortens the throw by 25% and now my fiesta feels like its got the same shift length as an MX5, honestly it should have been like that from stock. and for all you track people out there, you can get a raised screw in knob bringing the shifter closer to the wheel. absolutly makes a difference, and when your back out on normal roads, screw the long gear knob off, screw the original back on, win win.,
oh and door projectors, the fiesta does not have that, when you open the doors of the puma ST is projected on the ground.
i totally agree, the grip on the car or if you are lucky to try the fiesta, oh my god. I have pilot 4 ' s (not the 4s or the 5, get the normal 4) drop the pressure to 1.9 in the back and 2.1 in the front because when they heat up they will be absolutly perfect for racing, I hopped by a golf r golf gti, n30 Projectc, a few mx5s on the nordeschliefe. dominated a ton of old beemers on Chenevieres. this thing corners like a bat out of hell and then is complemented by the 325nm torque. so epic.
the fabric boot cover is to keep items in boot from becomming projectiles in the event of a crash, "bit silly i agree" but that is a legal requirement over here.
*faceplam, the giggly ish of the stearing wheel is the feedback from the tyres. if you dont like it, change the pressure and tyres. I love this feeling, i feel every stone bump and offset in the road. this does not make me nervous at all, it makes me faster.
if you track the car, you must change the break pads, or you will end up changing your entire breaking system, the oem pads are shit, and will kill the disks. also if you do track, you can get "if you enquire, an oem air intake break cooling kit for 1k incl labour, because they know the pads will kill the disks. (i found this out the hard way) no need for bigger disks calipers lines etc, the oem disks and calipers plus lines are perfect, its just the pads that let you down, they will grind off the inside of the disks, and if you go for a single session of 20+ laps you will warp your disks thanks to the torque vectoring which does not turn off on sport mode, you need to be in track with esp off to kill vectoring.
that said, for stability, (maybe im a noob?) i found the vectoring along with the lsd, to be extreamly good.
Love mine and it has the diff.
i have managed to put a carry on, a full suitcase, a pram and a car seat into the back of that car.
Be glad you at least get this....in America we have not had the Fiesta for years now...and we don't get the Puma either.
the gear knob in my fiesta is carbon fiber and a circular knob, i could have had the same one as the puma but it was more expensive and heavier, "as stock" the carbon one??? was cheaper and lighter. at 60 bucks
I own one and its a great Car . Ive no regrets and the mean Green is stunning .
the infotainment lag is a think it is a "Little bit slow" would have liked to have seen a better ARM chip drive it, however this is easily solved by using apple carplay or android auto, I have also installed a Motorolla MA1 wireless adapter which really really complements the use of those infotainment systems, and they intergrate with the car brilliantly, g assist maps to the speaker button on the cars wheel.
Wish I could have one in this color in America...this is the only crossover I would ever buy.
Apple car play works through a cable and not through Bluetooth or WiFi unfortunately, if it’s the same as my Focus with the same Sync infotainment system
The digital dash is a horrible thing. Mine keeps lagging and then loading the speedo over the other elements, so you can't see it properly. The dealership say is a $6,500 replacement dash, but I'm certain it's just bad programming and don't want them to pull it all to pieces only to have squeaks and rattles later on. Hopefully the software engineers figure it out going forward and can fix it with an update.
Sad to hear of your dash problems. I was concerned about reliability so opted for the MK8 FiST3 with hybrid dash to try to minimise future issues. I though the replacement cost would be a couple of thousand pounds but £5k approx! OMG!!
Harry maguire reviewing a puma...brilliant..😁
Nice review, does it pull more than the i20n?
I drove both. The Puma feels more fun to drive. The engine gives you a feeling of just rev me and do me dirty.
The n20i is in the real world faster but in higher rpm the power drops off. Just based on the engine I would go with the Ford because it's just more on the edge. (At least you will think that :D)
@@mr.bernie6198 Thank you, yes i was worried that the responsiveness of the puma's engine would be compromised by the extra weight of the puma compared to the i20n but it appears that it's not a problem😃
@@alviL200 your welcome!
I remember that the 0-100 kph (60mph) is faster with the Hyundai like 0,5 sec but it felt so much faster in the Ford. The sound and the whole feeling in that cat was different :D and the quality of materials
@@mr.bernie6198 Yes i also believe that while the i20n has a faster acceleration in general the puma could be faster in same gear acceleration and have a sharper pick-up compared to the i20n because of shorter gears and more torque but there's no way to know this for sure
@@alviL200 true. Well you drive on a public road... So just drive what car you prefer based on your feelings and not on database😁 for me it's the Ford without a doubt. And it's a rare car unlike the Hyundai
I've had one without the diff and it's doesn't pull you all over the place
Interesting! You can only have the car with the Performance Pack now so no choice in the matter.
@TyredFormat I think your find that's the fiesta puma performance pack is still a option
I'm ordering a puma st in December but not sure whether to option the performance pack or not , it's 950 quid extra but will be choosing a colour option either grey matter or fantastic red which is 525 extra, like mean green but ford stopped that colour option
@@johnwhite2143 go for the new blue
@@andrewmaple9863 I thought the new azure blue was for the new 1.0st automatic with 170hp but only available for that model not the 1.5st manual 🤔
It has a 1.5 Not 1.6
U seem very upset
Thank god Ford doesn’t sell this trash in the states 😂
You wouldn't fit in it 😂