I rented a 4-door hatchback Ford Fiesta in Europe last July for one week. The car was incredibly cheap. The window seal, which was held on with glue, was flapping in the breeze, the drivers side door handle which housed the electric window lifts was so short that you had to literally twist to the left to reach the power window button, and the model I had was dangerously underpowered.
To give you a idea of how poorly designed the car was (2009 model, BTW), I had two size-wise pieces of luggage that fit perfectly in the overhead bin of the aircraft I flew on. These two pieces of luggage would not fit in the hatch hold of this car. I had to put one bag in the back seat.
The car would travel slightly greater than 100 MPH on the autobahn but it took forever to reach that speed and the acceleration was scary to say the least. I found myself not exceeding 140kmh (85 MPH) due to the need to stay out of the hammer lane. The chassis was relatively stable at high speed though.
Was this a worn-out, abused example of a rental car? Certainly not. The car had 1800kms (1100 miles) on the odo when I picked it up.
Likes: very attractive exterior, excellent fuel economy (42 MPG when run as hard as it would go), felt nice at slow speeds in the curves.
Dislikes: very cheaply built, very underpowered, transmission (5 spd manual) belonged in a tractor and not a car.
Would I buy one? No. The U.S. model will require a larger, less efficient engine to be popular here. There are simply too many other vehicles to compete against in this size group to make it a success. Looks will only take you so far in the highly competitive entry-level car market. Accents, Sentras, Fits, etc, are all far superior to this Ford. Using price to lure customers to the Fiesta will likely hurt Ford in the long run by souring the brand.
