New Ford puma...

ThePrettyDamned

randella said:

digitalscream said:

boogieman said:

strtdv said:

The Juke is a small car, it's basically a Micra on stilts (and drives like that too, and not in a good way) so it's not roomy at all.

If they hadn’t put such a stupidly steep rake on the rear hatch it could’ve been much bigger.

Is it really only Micra sized? I thought it looked more like a Focus/Golf size.  

My wife had one as a courtesy car once, and - after wanting one for a couple of years - she said it was probably the worst car she'd ever driven. Tiny inside, made of cheap crap plastic with wrapping of tin foil around it, and generally not remotely enjoyable to drive.

Had one myself once, again as a courtesy car. I wouldn’t say it was the worst car I’d driven (I’ve had some right shit tips), but I’d agree with the last sentence. Bloody awful car.

Which is a shame, because if you look at the old micras, they were bullet proof Japanese minis. 

I drive a Toyota Aygo. Surprisingly roomy for a tiny car, probably as much as the new micras. At least it doesn't pretend to be something it's not! 

robgilmo

stickyfiddle said:

The Juke is absolutely that small - I had one as a rental in the UK last week. Supposedly in the "Ford Focus or equivalent" - in reality a significantly smaller and less good car all round, except if you want a high seating position to feel more confident on the road, I assume.

It was no bigger inside than my Mum's 2005-ish Corsa. Absolutely shitheap but one of the UK's best selling cars of the last decade. Baffling. The Qashqai is miles better in comparison, though I still don't see the point.

Next time I'll save a pound a day and go for the class down, which still gets you a proper hatchback - the new Fiesta looks properly great for its class.

If its anything like the last one with its disposable engine (I shit you not) and its water cooled cam cover I can see a lot of unhappy owners with huge garage bills.

boogieman

stickyfiddle said:

The Juke is absolutely that small - I had one as a rental in the UK last week. Supposedly in the "Ford Focus or equivalent" - in reality a significantly smaller and less good car all round, except if you want a high seating position to feel more confident on the road, I assume.

It was no bigger inside than my Mum's 2005-ish Corsa. Absolutely shitheap but one of the UK's best selling cars of the last decade. Baffling. The Qashqai is miles better in comparison, though I still don't see the point.

Next time I'll save a pound a day and go for the class down, which still gets you a proper hatchback - the new Fiesta looks properly great for its class.

Yeah that is baffling, especially considering it looks like it was designed by Stevie Wonder and modelled on Quasimodo’s uglier brother. 

robgilmo

So here is the thing, cheap plastic interiors, all cars have plastic interiors, not just shit cars. What would you prefer? Walnut panelling with Brass fittings? If you want higher spec, buy a car with a higher spec. SUV's with no boot space clogging up our roads, thats because they are actually small cars, just a little taller, its not because a car manufacturer went against everything they have ever learned and decided to design a car with as little boot space as possible in order to make the car somehow bigger. If you look at a Nissan Duke, its a hatch back, not an estate, like a Golf. If you need bigger, buy bigger, simples.
In fairness, all the cars mentioned in this thread, with the exception of the older Micras (K10 through to K12) , boot space would be the least of their worries, The Qashqai for instance, I would be more concerned about what comes out of its exhaust than what I could put in the boot. 

As for 4WD capability's, the Nissan All Mode system for instance is very clever, its not designed to take you up Everest but in snow or mud for instance it will do much better than a Focus, in fact on any surface it will do much better than a Focus. If you want to go up Everest buy a Land Cruiser. Ive pretty much driven and worked on most of these cross over SUV's, they are what they are, a little car on stilts with an intelligent drive system (optional on things like Dukes) , a decent seating position and an average cars footprint. I quite like them for what they are, cheap cars, but I would never buy one, just not my thing. 

stickyfiddle

robgilmo said:

So here is the thing, cheap plastic interiors, all cars have plastic interiors, not just shit cars. What would you prefer? Walnut panelling with Brass fittings? If you want higher spec, buy a car with a higher spec. SUV's with no boot space clogging up our roads, thats because they are actually small cars, just a little taller, its not because a car manufacturer went against everything they have ever learned and decided to design a car with as little boot space as possible in order to make the car somehow bigger. If you look at a Nissan Duke, its a hatch back, not an estate, like a Golf. If you need bigger, buy bigger, simples.
In fairness, all the cars mentioned in this thread, with the exception of the older Micras (K10 through to K12) , boot space would be the least of their worries, The Qashqai for instance, I would be more concerned about what comes out of its exhaust than what I could put in the boot. 
 

I think the thing with the Juke is that it's not a small car on the outside - it feels similar to my Golf when manoeuvring, but on the inside it's fundamentally less nice place to be. I know that material quality is price-driven, which is why my Golf is nicer but also costs more, but it goes way beyond that, into stupid annoyances. Within 10 minutes I'd identified the following: 

- the boot is *tiny* for a car of its size. A fair bit smaller and more irregularly-shaped than my Mum's aforementioned Corsa
- the backrest angle adjustment is a flippy-lever type rather than the simple adjustment wheel that most sensible cars have. That means it's very hard to adjust while driving. 
- the gap between the door and the seat isn't big enough to actually get a full-sized adult's arm down either, making it doubly hard to adjust. 
- the central armrest is in the way of the handbrake. It's just shit design. Flipping it up moves it, but it's still in the way in a different place. The handbrake is also on the passenger side, which is odd, and I assume an artefact of a car designed primarily for LHD, and they've not moved it for the RHD version to save money. 
- the reversing camera has little graded lines to show your trajectory, but those lines don't move when you turn the wheel (and hence show where the car will actually end up) which makes them completely useless. 
- the buttons on the steering wheel are *hateful*, including rocker switches that have to pivot so much they're uncomfortable to press, plus unclear labelling of functions (turns out the "i" button scrolls through different driver data on the dash - WTF?!). I've driven a shitload of rental cars over the last few years and the only one that comes close to that level of crapness is the Kia Sportage infotainment but even that was fine in terms of usability outside the touchscreen stereo and generally pretty excellent in all other areas. 

I get that fixing a couple of those would increase cost a little, but mostly they speak to unnecessarily poor design, when Ford, VW, Mazda, Renault etc get it so much better in the same price range. I don't expect BMW dynamics or Porsche performance, but when even the Qashqai is so much better you wonder if the Juke was farmed out to a group of interns and not reviewed by management.

robgilmo

See, I dont get the small boot for a car its size, its relative, small car, small boot. What could make it seem bigger on the outside is the width between the wheels, a tall car benefits from a wide beam, especially on cornering, COG and all that, and not having much hardware, like central diffs or beam axles it would be easy to make it drive like a brick on a bed spring if the designers weren't careful, remember the little Zuki 4x4 that kept toppling over going around corners?

Perhaps the design focused on comfort rather than practicality, for instance, adjust your seat when you get into the car before driving it, then shut the door. From what I gather its on the same platform as the Qashqai isnt it? So it should share a lot of the  same stuff without cross saturation being a problem.

stickyfiddle

robgilmo said:

See, I dont get the small boot for a car its size, its relative, small car, small boot. What could make it seem bigger on the outside is the width between the wheels, a tall car benefits from a wide beam, especially on cornering, COG and all that, and not having much hardware, like central diffs or beam axles it would be easy to make it drive like a brick on a bed spring if the designers weren't careful, remember the little Zuki 4x4 that kept toppling over going around corners?

Perhaps the design focused on comfort rather than practicality, for instance, adjust your seat when you get into the car before driving it, then shut the door. From what I gather its on the same platform as the Qashqai isnt it? So it should share a lot of the  same stuff without cross saturation being a problem.

Re the boot I'd say "not really". It's a chunky car and quite tall, so you'd expect more space granted by that height but we barely got 2 suitcases in - and not even particularly large ones.

As for the rest, I don't buy your argument. For optimum comfort you want to be able to adjust your seat while driving, because it's only while driving and settled that you can ever really refine your position. In a car just 3 cm narrower than a Golf it's miles harder to do, just because the choice of mechanism is rubbish and the armrest on the door is super-chunky. It's not the end of the world (I was already 100% sure I'd never buy one well before last week's rental) but it's crapness of design and I will always be frustrated by that no matter where I find it. I guess most people just don't care, or don't even notice (shudder!)

I realise I'm splitting hairs to the point of Emp-ness, but no other car has annoyed me so much, and it's not even that cheap! I'd have an 18-month old *anything else* any day of the week.

strtdv

The Juke also has a serious lack of front wheel grip causing some pretty fearsome understeer.

randella

For balance, a while back I had ten days with a rented Dacia Duster which I liked a lot - it had comfortable seats, a pliant ride, a reasonably punchy Renault diesel even in rental spec.  Decent brakes, a sharp enough six-speed manual gearbox.  The AC blew cold, and there was a functional satnav.  It wasn't spectacularly roomy but big enough.

for the same price (roughly) I'd have the Dacia over the Nissan all day long.  I generally try and like cars, so this isn't a baseless internet rant - but I just couldn't get on with the Juke.

EricTheWeary

randella said:

For balance, a while back I had ten days with a rented Dacia Duster which I liked a lot - it had comfortable seats, a pliant ride, a reasonably punchy Renault diesel even in rental spec.  Decent brakes, a sharp enough six-speed manual gearbox.  The AC blew cold, and there was a functional satnav.  It wasn't spectacularly roomy but big enough.

for the same price (roughly) I'd have the Dacia over the Nissan all day long.  I generally try and like cars, so this isn't a baseless internet rant - but I just couldn't get on with the Juke.

The amount of Dacias, especially the Duster, you see in France is crazy. I think there has always been a demographic for no nonsense, functional vehicles there and the Dacias seem to fit that at the moment. 

I remember looking at the Qashqai when it first came out as we still had an Almera then and I got as far as thinking it was incredibly cramped for a family car and that's as far as we bothered.    

munckee

monquixote said:

RaymondLin said:

I really don’t know what the obsession with SUV is either.  Some of the country lanes are tiny, some towns have very narrow roads that a Yaris barely fits.  They are bigger, heavier, less aerodynamic so its
worse for fuel.  How often to you need all that space anyway?

They generally have bugger all space in them compared to the MPV type cars they replace for a lot of families.

Someone I know went from a Xara Picasso to a Qashqai and for a car of similar size you could get absolutely naff al in it and was totally useless for gigs.

Sitting up high and space for a families stuff is the reason I have MPVs or SUVs, I lease so its all about the deal I can get.  I had a Touran which is a great family car and not much bigger footprint than a golf and you can fit a large 2 seat settee in the back with the seats down.  Not loads of leg room in the back though.

I currently have a Kia Sportage which is really roomy inside for a family of 4 and has the biggest boot of all the medium SUVs I tried - can take family plus all stuff for a week away including wetsuits & bodyboards comfortably.

Only downside is I drive automatics and in a kia I had to have the full AWD rather than 2wd which means 38 to the gallon, the touran auto used to do 50+ all the time.

gubble

That's not a Puma at all.

Is that thing replacing the Ecosport as surely it's the same car other than a few different panels?

randella

EricTheWeary said:

The amount of Dacias, especially the Duster, you see in France is crazy. I think there has always been a demographic for no nonsense, functional vehicles there and the Dacias seem to fit that at the moment.   

I think that's what I liked about it.  I've no opinion on SUVs one way or the other really, but the thing that appealed about the Dacia was that it was purpose-built to just ferry me about in comfort.  We hired it in Corsica and they were everywhere so no surprise to see them all over in France.  I guess the Renault connection helps

menamestom

ThePrettyDamned said:

digitalscream said:

.

My first was a 1.7 puma and it was a stunner. What a car. If it was replaced with a 1 litre eco boost version, it would be just as nippy and fun with a sport 1.4 version for people who need to compensate for something. 

Such a pretty car, it handled nicely and was just... So damn right. A modern version could make driving fun without being a gas guzzling monster. It even had a half decent boot, 

The Fiesta fills that part if the range now, okay it’s a hatch but the ST line has the 1l 3 cylinder 140bhp and the ST a 3 cylinder 200bhp 1.5 litre engine.   The ST particularly (both this version and the previous 1.6 4 cylinder) are thought of as pretty much the best small, fun sports car that's every been made.  So if you want a small, fun, reasonably economical Ford, you can get one.

crunchman

EricTheWeary said:

I remember looking at the Qashqai when it first came out as we still had an Almera then and I got as far as thinking it was incredibly cramped for a family car and that's as far as we bothered.    

The Qashqai is awful.   We have friends who have one, and my wife was a passenger in the back.  She's tall for a woman (around 5'9") but she was complaining about the lack of leg room.  Boot space is utterly awful as well.

The high driving position of SUVs does appeal to some people, and sometimes they are easier to park because they are shorter, but they are so much heavier and less aerodynamic that there is no reason a sane person should want an SUV.  If you do live in the country, get a proper 4x4 like a Land Rover or Land Cruiser.

For 95% of people, MPVs are a much better option.  I can understand the decline in saloons and conventional hatches.  Our Verso is more than a foot shorter than a Mondeo, has 7 seats (although you wouldn't want to put an adult in the back row), and has a reasonably high driving position (for those who like that).

menamestom

Pity they have discontinued the Cmax, my wife loves hers, because it has a shelf above the radio.  When she comes to replace it I doubt they will have the same shelves, so I’ll probably have to whittle one up from some left over wood in the shed.

digitalscream

menamestom said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

digitalscream said:

.

My first was a 1.7 puma and it was a stunner. What a car. If it was replaced with a 1 litre eco boost version, it would be just as nippy and fun with a sport 1.4 version for people who need to compensate for something. 

Such a pretty car, it handled nicely and was just... So damn right. A modern version could make driving fun without being a gas guzzling monster. It even had a half decent boot, 

The Fiesta fills that part if the range now, okay it’s a hatch but the ST line has the 1l 3 cylinder 140bhp and the ST a 3 cylinder 200bhp 1.5 litre engine.   The ST particularly (both this version and the previous 1.6 4 cylinder) are thought of as pretty much the best small, fun sports car that's every been made.  So if you want a small, fun, reasonably economical Ford, you can get one.

Except...the Fiesta's just fugly That was the whole point of the Puma, it was fun and good looking, without being overpowered or brutal.

ThePrettyDamned

digitalscream said:

menamestom said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

digitalscream said:

.

My first was a 1.7 puma and it was a stunner. What a car. If it was replaced with a 1 litre eco boost version, it would be just as nippy and fun with a sport 1.4 version for people who need to compensate for something. 

Such a pretty car, it handled nicely and was just... So damn right. A modern version could make driving fun without being a gas guzzling monster. It even had a half decent boot, 

The Fiesta fills that part if the range now, okay it’s a hatch but the ST line has the 1l 3 cylinder 140bhp and the ST a 3 cylinder 200bhp 1.5 litre engine.   The ST particularly (both this version and the previous 1.6 4 cylinder) are thought of as pretty much the best small, fun sports car that's every been made.  So if you want a small, fun, reasonably economical Ford, you can get one.

Except...the Fiesta's just fugly That was the whole point of the Puma, it was fun and good looking, without being overpowered or brutal.

Exactly. Modern hot hatches are mostly pretty ugly (show me a good looking one...). The puma was really pretty, an absolute triumph of design - it was as if they stole some of Alfa's designers to make something from a fiesta chassis and they made that. 

A modern one with that 1l engine would be amazing - economical, small enough to nip around cities, fun to drive and look at, and practical for couples or small families. 

You could say the same about the fiesta, but it's not a coupe and doesn't look as nice. 

Good grief I loved that car. And I'm *not* a car person. 

strtdv

I quite like the modern fiestas. The ST is the best small hot hatch out there.

Ford makes some great cars at the moment, the Fiesta ST and the Focus RS are both great (though the ride in the RS is too hard for UK roads), but the new Puma looks like it's definitely not one of them.

I actually quite like Dacia, the 4x4 version of the Duster is meant to be very capable off road, and there's a definite utilitarian/unpretentious vibe to them which is nice. 

The only thing worse than pretentious SUVs is pretentious SUV/coupe crossover things (X4, GLC Coupe etc). The sooner that particular automotive trend runs its course the better.

menamestom

ThePrettyDamned said:

You could say the same about the fiesta, but it's not a coupe and doesn't look as nice. 

Good grief I loved that car. And I'm *not* a car person. 

I don’t think either the fiesta ST or the 90’s Puma are fords finest triumphs looks wise (saw a new Mustang 5.0 the other day and that was really nice).  But as a car the current fiesta is probably better in every way, but saying that a couple version with the current Fiesta chassis and engine range probably would be pretty cool.

menamestom said:

.

Except...the Fiesta's just fugly That was the whole point of the Puma, it was fun and good looking, without being overpowered or brutal.

I wouldn’t describe the Fiesta ST as brutal or overpowered in any way, it’s the sweet spot in handling and power for me.  I have the focus and at 250BHP even that’s far from brutal nowadays.  Audi RS3 etc, they are brutal and overpowered.