1.0 Ecoboost fuel consumption

[Mike Hicks]

Last week I was tempted to trade in my 16 year old mk.1 Focus 1.6 Ghia for a 2012 Focus 1 litre ecoboost.

I've changed jobs recently and I drive a lot further now. Unsure how long I could reasonably expect my old Focus to carry on putting up with the 500 miles a week, although to be fair it was very reliable, but anyway I took the plunge. I had heard good things about these tiny 3 cylinder ecoboost engines.

I have to admit, it also occurred to me that if I could get the 68mpg claimed then I could make about a third of the monthly bank loan payment in petrol savings alone.

Firstly, just let me say I love the new car. Its great. Wouldn't change it for the world. At long last I have a DAB radio and my iPhone is now integrated - no more headsets or earpieces for me.

But, having just finished the first tankful, I can tell you I only averaged 50.3 mpg. Still, that's a huge improvement on a 16 year old 1.6 that managed 43 mpg.

A good 90% of the driving I do is at 60-70 mph on the M5 and A303. Motorwats are fine but you have to reach them first, from your house!

Annoyingly, every journey has stops and starts and hills are inevitable.

Unless you live in a parallel universe designed by Escher in which every journey is only downhill, you are doomed to failure.

What on earth do you have to do to get anywhere close to the extra-urban figure quoted?

[iantt]

Quiet country roads with  speed limits of 30,40,50 on a 14 mile drive to work and it can be done. I do manage 68mpg (showing 70mpg on trip computer)

Your milage is better suited to a diesel to be fair. 

[Mike Hicks]

Thanks Ian, that's interesting.

In your opinion, where do you think the "sweet spots" are in power-economy terms?

e.g. should I be attempting to do as much as I can at 35 mph in 4th gear?

[Mike Hicks]

I did think about diesels but I was resolved to try and avoid them.

There's been so much diesel bad press recently, and diesel drivers are made out to be public enemy no. 1.

Leaving a big cloud of black smoke at the traffic lights is hopefully a thing of the past for me now.

Having test driven the 1.0 ecoboost I was impressed with the driveability. A 1 litre car that feels like a 2 litre.

[Garry DW17]

Hi Mike, i too have the Focus 1.0 ECOBOOST 2017 MODEL.  Love it to bits after driving diesel for a good ten years. most of my driving is short town runs i dont use the stop/start but get 38-42 mpg around town and on a long run i managed to see 55mpg on the cars gauge so can say im happy with this figure as its on a par with the 1.6 tdci cmax i had before.

i have made just one mod a k & n type filter in the standard airbox which has smoothed out the jerking at low revs in traffic. i do try to use the car sensibly but the traffic light rush hour cant help with fuel consumption ?? 

i too had looked into a new diesel Focus but feel the petrol is a bit cleaner for city driving.the petrol 1.0 is amazing as you say drives like a 2 litre without guzzling fuel.

it does seem to be happy doing the low revs high gear driving mode just try ignore the gear change indicator and enjoy the drive !

[nitten_traveller]

I'm sufficiently time rich that I keep a little spreadsheet of the car's economy, mostly to see how the car's calculated mpg matches with my own.  It consistently over-estimates the economy.  Each time I fill until the nozzle clicks, then reset everything on the dashboard as I drive off. 

Average speed is a good indicator of what I was doing. I don't usually drive to work, so often more than a month will pass between refueling (at either Tesco or Shell).  So the majority of it is town driving with a bit of 5/6th gear thrown in.  I've no idea what Ford claim the car should be able to do, but I'm not a good enough driver to get 68 mpg!

Car is a 63 plate 125 bhp Focus Zetec.

[iantt]

Reading the road ahead and using the lack of engine braking on the 1.0 keeps fuel economy up. Surprising how far you can coast off throttle . I'm now a master at fuel economy. 

but my  partner has a fiesta 1.0 and she cant seem to get more than 46mpg . she is heavy footed and last minute  braking, doesnt read the road ahead 

[Mike Hicks]

The trouble with "lift and coast" is that for every hill you go down there's a equivalent one you have to go up, unless as I said you live in Escher world and all journeys are downhill!

I think the lesson here is to just try to forget about the fuel consumption and as Garry says, enjoy the drive.

For a 1 litre its unbelievably responsive to the right foot, and its a joy to drive when you're used to a 16 year old 1.6 mk.1

Its turbo blown and any turbo will do bugger all if you're low revs high gear, so you just have to remember when its time to accelerate away just drop down a cog and squeeze the right pedal. You know the live MPG readout is going to take a temporary nose dive but just try to ignore it.

My 16 year old 1.6 did a consistent average 43 MPG. Ive had this 2012 1 litre for a week now and however I drive and whether its motorway or lanes I seem to be fated to get 50 MPG out of it. That's a big improvement on the old car so I think with a little effort I can learn to stop obsessing about it!

When I first had it from the 2nd hand dealer the trip computer said there's 30 miles left in it so I filled it up with unleaded, but was slightly disappointed to discover the pump clicked-off before I'd got ten gallons in. It was just about exactly 9.5 gallons. I used to be able to fit ten in the old mk.1 Focus.

The workaround of course is to put 5 in (22.7 litres) and divide the mileage by 5 instead of 10.

Hopefully this will suit me for a few years and my next car will be one you plug into the house electric socket.

[Dee_82]

reading the road ahead allows you to take in to account hills. you right in the sense that wheres theres a down hill there is an up but you can totally own that hill with correct driving practices. 

As Ian said, lift and coast in this wee car is amazing since it has next to no engine braking at all.  If you attempt to stay at the same speed then it wont work, you have to be flexible with your speeds.

For example, you going down a hill, give it a little juice to increase your forward momentum then lift an coast, you hit the other side and start the incline, roll up a bit to bleed of some speed then lightly apply some throttle to get you up (if you have enough momentum you can continue to bleed off speed a little whilst applying throttle so you dont bleed off too much) if you get it right you will get to the top but just before you crest the top, lift completely and roll over the top, and so on.

Before I got rid my 1.6 TDCI I was averaging 65MPG, mostly county and motorways, my partners new festa is getting around 52MPG, but thats largely around town

My 2.0TDCI is....a little less economical, especially since I cant maintain throttle position or the bloomin turbo vanes stick and throws it in to limp more 😞 so im down to 45MPG from around 51MPG and cant use 6th.

 

 

 

[nitten_traveller]

15 hours ago, iantt said:

Reading the road ahead and using the lack of engine braking on the 1.0 keeps fuel economy up. Surprising how far you can coast off throttle . I'm now a master at fuel economy. 

but my  partner has a fiesta 1.0 and she cant seem to get more than 46mpg . she is heavy footed and last minute  braking, doesnt read the road ahead 

I do try not to use the brakes whenever possible but have never really done coasting.  I tried on the way to work this morning.  Edinburgh has too many hills, roundabouts, traffic lights, bus stops, parked cars, moving cars and roadworks to allow for coasting!  When you say lack of engine braking do you mean that even with a gear engaged the car doesn't slow down very much?  I've definitely noticed that when travelling at speed and taking my foot off the throttle at the approach to a slip road. In 5th or 6th the car just keeps going. 

I also find that in 6th gear at speed the car still has a remarkable amount of extra pull when you need it.

[pragmatix]

21 minutes ago, nitten_traveller said:

.  Edinburgh has too many hills, roundabouts, traffic lights, bus stops, parked cars, moving cars and roadworks to allow for coasting!  

 

Yep you have no chance decent mpg in and around Edinburgh, i got my partners 1ltf 125bhp down to 28 mpg in Edinburgh traffic, great engine though and you can have real fun with them but not fun and econmy together.

[Dee_82]

6 hours ago, pragmatix said:

Yep you have no chance decent mpg in and around Edinburgh, i got my partners 1ltf 125bhp down to 28 mpg in Edinburgh traffic, great engine though and you can have real fun with them but not fun and econmy together.

I hate driving around Edinburgh, its possibly my least favourite city for car owners ive ever had the misfortune of driving in, never mind getting a good mpg from driving about the place, you'll be lucky if you get out at all!  Glasgow isnt much better, but thanks to Free tampons for women etc, you'll likely need corrective spinal surgery from all the pot holes

 

[Mike Hicks]

Thanks everyone for your replies to this topic.

The best I can do after 2 weeks driving is around 52mpg.

One question, this has been bugging me since I bought it...

How can I tell which 1.0 EcoBoost Focus I've bought? I mean Is it the 100PS or the 125PS model?

I can tell you its got 5 gears, manual.

How do I tell which derivative I've gone and bought?

 

[harisma23]

It's a bit hard to understand how can you buy a car without knowing the exact engine version.

However I can tell you by the 5-gear gearbox that you have the 100 PS version. The 125 PS version has the 6-speed gearbox.

[Mike Hicks]

Thanks Harisma23

Clearly horse power wasn't the primary dominating factor in my purchase decision!!

My main "wants" were excellent reliability and fuel economy.

Reliability - this is my second Focus and I've had a 1.6 mk4 Escort and a 2 litre Sierra in years gone by. Ford are good. I've never had a bad one.

Fuel economy - Its the revolutionary cutting-edge 1.0 litre EcoBoost engine that has won design awards. Need I say more...

And I found the possibility of paying less for a year's road tax than I'm used to paying for just one month, especially appealing.

If they're not bothered about taxing it then it can't be pushing out very much CO2 and if it isn't pushing out very much CO2 it isn't burning very much petrol!!

[Dee_82]

it does have one or two pitfalls to be mindful of, notably the turbo coolant inlet / outlet barbs rusting to buggery and dumping its coolant on the floor and the coolant pipe from the expansion tank to the turbo going brittle and busting... other than that its a good engine🙂 

 

[Pan40man]

I know this is an older thread but we’ve recently bought a 2018 ( not newest model) focus 1.0 125 and on the same commute that we’ve been on for years it’s only returning 35 - 37mpg, I’m finding this hard to accept. Previous cars were an 04 mk1 1.8tdci 118 focus which returned 46mpg even with spirited outings, it was the best car we’ve owned. Then a Kia ceed 1.6crdi which returned 45-52mpg on commuting. 
I was expecting at least 40mpg from the new focus but I can’t see it happening, one thing I do notice is sometimes from cold on light acceleration it’s a bit hesitant and also has clutch judder sometimes when cold on an incline start. Once warm it seems ok. However it’s very difficult to get a smooth gear change from 1st to 2nd gear, I don’t mean the box itself which is very smooth but the uptake of drive when taking up throttle/releasing the clutch. Higher gears are ok.

 

the car is just over a year old bought from main dealer but only had 3000 mls on it.

is this normal for one of these ?.

[Bosshogg84]

I have a 2018 Focus that I bought about 18 months ago it has some massive pros and also some let downs. Pros are that something so little can produce that much power. But one of the biggest let downs is that it can be a very bad on fuel if driving in a traditional way I can only get 35mpg but have changed how I drive this partly because it’s the first new car I’ve bought but also that it doesn’t need a heavy foot. I can find with mine that on the motorway and A roads I can get 50+ with a consistent speed and yes I mean 70-80 as once your at that speed the live mpg uses very little and can achieve a lot. I do however think what is displayed most of the time on the dash is a conservative estimate as it says when I fill mine that I have 410 miles and my work commute is 45 miles a day and I only fill up twice a month there abouts. Over all I’ve found it a great car we’re if I want to drive it sensible I have good results and if I want to drive it like the 18 year old I once was it also ticks that box to. 

[Cyril scrivens]

Can anyone help iv got a Ford focus eco boost and got engine light on iv had a code come up regardless sensor iv changed both but light still come on 

[unofix]

Well you could start by confirming what size Ecoboom engine you have, is it the 1.0 ?  and what DTC's you have. Then someone may be able to offer some advice.

On a 2013 model it is due / overdue to have the wet cambelt changed. Has this been done ?

[DaveT70]

23 minutes ago, Cyril scrivens said:

Can anyone help iv got a Ford focus eco boost and got engine light on iv had a code come up regardless sensor iv changed both but light still come on 

Hi Welcome,

This is a very old thread, start a new one

Try and put a lot more detail too, what was the code, what have you changed?