We take Ford’s Ecosport out for a spin!

We’re not going to lie – we’re enamored with Ford’s Fiesta and Focus hatchbacks. They’re quick, nimble and get good mileage even in Manila’s perpetually traffic choked roads. Probably the only problem with both these excellent cars is water – specifically, flood waters. Once the rainy season rolls in, both these cars, along with other typical sedans are limited to the roads that aren’t submerged in floods. To efficiently navigate Manila and its surrounding environs when the rainy season starts, you need an SUV, or at least, a crossover.

The problem is that a decent SUV or crossover usually cost more than a million pesos, which isn’t viable for people looking for an affordable option. This is where Ford’s 2014 Ford Ecosport 1.5L Titanium come in. On paper, it has all the advantages of an SUV and similar vehicles – it’s set higher than most sedans, so it can ford through gutter deep (and slightly deeper) flood waters without fearing for its life – without sacrificing the nimbleness and fuel economy of a sedan.

The Ecosport, in a nutshell, is a Fiesta on stilts. While some may not agree with that generalization, parts of it are true – it has the same 1.5L Ti-VCT engine found on the Fiesta paired with a 6-speed PowerShift transmission.

The externals of the car is a bit unconventional, especially when you compare it to other crossovers and SUVs. The nose is pretty blunt, and is dominated by an octagonal radiator in an inverted Superman. The overall design of the Ecosport is quite different compared to the other crossovers in the market and it seems that it’s a major polarizing factor for people – some like it, some don’t, but whatever your taste is you can’t fault Ford for trying something new.

Much like the Fiesta and the Focus, the Ecosport is equipped with Ford’s hi-tech Sync entertainment system. We absolutely love the fact that we can just pair our smartphone via Bluetooth to the system and give it voice commands while we’re driving, though voice commands to control the music you’re listening to doesn’t extend to music streaming apps like Deezer. As far as creature comfort is concerned, the Ecosport is a very comfortable car to drive, with plenty of legroom for all passengers, though we did notice that the trunk space was a bit lacking. The good news is that you can fold the rear seats to give you even more space, critical when you decide to buy one (or more) of each vegetable from Baguio’s city market.

As far as actually driving the thing, you’ll be happy to know that the Ecosport is stable as a rock, even while driving flat out in NLEX, SCTEX and TPLEX. We took the Ecosport up to Baguio one weekend and the car performed well going up through Kennon road.

Probably the biggest issue that we encountered with the Ecosport is something that’s plagued vehicles with dual-clutch transmissions – shift shock. We felt it a lot when we were driving through Baguio’s intense Christmas traffic, aggravated by the City of Pine’s many inclined roads. We managed to work around that using the Ecosport’s SelectShift switch (which allows you to manually change gears like a M/T car) though it kind of defeats the point of buying an A/T car when you have to change the gears yourself.

Fuel economy is pretty good, considering the added weight and bulk of the Ecosport, you’re getting around 8 km/l in the city (because of traffic) and around 14.5 km/l in the highway.

At the end of the day, the Ecosport gives people a rather versatile crossover that’s bang for the buck – the Ford EcoSport 1.5L Titanuim AT that we drove (which is the most expensive of the bunch) is priced at only Php 975,000, which isn’t bad as far as crossovers go. For the price, you’re getting a rather nimble little crossover that can take the worst that Manila’s able to dish out.