Last year was my tenth in the car scribbling and road testing business. Feels like a long time, although working somewhere like Autocar – alongside people who’ve been at it three- or four-times as long in some cases – you soon realise it isn’t.
But it felt like a long time this morning in particular, driving the Ford EcoSport. I don’t think I’ve driven a genuinely bad new car from Ford in those ten years.
There have been high points (current Ford Fiesta, outgoing Ford Mondeo, any Ford Focus you care to mention) and not-so-high ones (current Ka, Fusion perhaps). Nothing poor, though. Didn’t think Ford was capable of it, to be honest.
I’ve certainly driven a bad Ford now. The Ford Ecosport is easily the worst new Ford of the current crop, and may even be the weakest introduction the company has made in longer than a decade.
More seriously for Ford, there’s probably not a worse compact crossover in the class that you could spend your money on. Nissan Juke, Renault Captur, Mini Countryman, Vauxhall Mokka, Kia Soul, Citroën C4 Cactus, Peugeot 2008; I’d take a Dacia Duster over this.
The 1.5-litre TDCI diesel EcoSport’s specific shortcomings will be the subject of a full Autocar road test in the not-too-distant future. It’s also a car we’ve already reviewed in preliminary fashion, and which you can read about here.
Suffice it to say now that it’s below the class standard in just about every way we assess these things: performance (plodding), refinement (rough and thrashy), handling (poor basic road-holding and ESP tuning), ride (noisy and unsettled), economy (struggles to 40mpg) and material quality.
You find flimsy, hard, rough, poorly finished plastics throughout the cabin, and the seats are hard and flat. The diesel engine’s terrible. The car’s fairly well-packaged, but that’s the solitary semi-compliment you might pay it. To these eyes it even looks dated and ill-proportioned.
Originally engineered by Ford US and a big-seller in last-gen format in South America, the current EcoSport is built in India for the European market.
The reason that an Indian-built Ford, designed and engineered to meet tastes and requirements a long way removed from ours, is now on sale in what’s routinely acknowledged as the most sophisticated market in the world, is the ‘One Ford’ manufacturing philosophy.
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And what of looks?
I hope that by the time I have worn my Focus into the ground, i will have re-found my love for the Focus. If not, I will be one of those moving away from the old bread and butter brands and probably heading to BMW, VW group or Volvo--and not because of the badge.
One redeeming feature
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