2021 Ford Puma review: Is it as fun as it looks?

CarExpert

The all-new 2021 Ford Puma is nothing like the small sports car of the late nineties. But, it is a sportier version of the small Ford Fiesta and that means it should be fun to drive. Paul Maric checks out the all-new Ford Puma to see if it drives as fun as it looks.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2021-ford-puma-st-line-v-review/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:58 Interior: 02:49 Infotainment: 04:07 Features: 06:13  Practicality: 06:55 On the Road: 10:21 Verdict: 15:42  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #ford #review #puma @fordofaustralia

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So when you think Ford Puma, I think a lot of you think about that sports car

00:04 from the late 90s. I know I certainly do, but today it is all about small SUVs and that's why

00:10 Ford has reinvented the Puma as an SUV. And you can kind of see similar design traits to that car

00:16 from the late 90s. Now this time around, this competes with things like the Mazda CX-30,

00:21 the Toyota C-HR, the Nissan Juke. It's becoming a highly contested segment where they can charge

00:26 a little bit extra for cars that are based on smaller cars. This right here is the top

00:30 specification Ford Puma ST-Line V. It's just under $36,000. Today we're going to do a detailed

00:38 review of the new Ford Puma. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,

00:42 you can use the time codes up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, just use the chapters

00:47 below. And if you haven't done so already, make sure you hit subscribe and press the bell icon

00:52 because that's going to tell you every single time we drive cars that were sports cars but are now

00:56 SUVs. Okay, let's talk styling. So you've got 13 colour combinations to choose from. All but

01:02 white is an additional $650. Now when I say colour combinations, you can get base colours and then

01:07 base colours with a black roof that they charge you extra for. So if you get the black roof as

01:12 well as one of the premium colours, it's $1,150. Now what about the design? So I mentioned before

01:17 that these headlights kind of remind me of that late 90s Puma, and then I think they've just

01:23 really tried to differentiate this from every other small SUV in this segment. I think a lot

01:28 of the small SUVs in this segment just look a little bit generic. I know the Duke looks kind

01:32 of out there and cool, but they've really gone to town on giving this a vibrant and youthful look,

01:37 especially here in the top spec model. Big old gaping grille there, you've got these cool chrome

01:42 or brushed aluminium highlights on the black grille, and then a nice sporty bottom lip to it,

01:48 really just stands out in traffic. Then in terms of headlights, you have LED daytime running lights

01:53 and then LED headlights, and then a fog light down there. If we jump around to the side,

01:59 you've got these 18-inch alloy wheels. Another cool design here, you've got that chrome element

02:04 on the outside and then black on the inside. Again, it just helps the car stand out and just

02:08 gives it that sporty appearance while you're driving out on the road. Over here, you've got

02:12 an ST-Line badge to signify that this is a sporty model. Indicator built into that wing mirror,

02:18 you have privacy glass over here. That black roof that's optioned on this car, this one also has

02:23 sunroof as well, and then come around to the rear. So you've got LED taillights built into there,

02:28 big old Puma branding down the bottom, the Ford logo there. This is such a cool looking car. I

02:34 didn't expect it to look this good in person. In the pictures, I reckon it's a tiny bit bland,

02:37 but in this colour combination, I think it looks great. Little spoiler built in there. Now, let me

02:41 know in the comments section below, do you think it looks good as well? Is this one of the better

02:44 looking small SUVs in the segment? Let me know what you're thinking. Okay, so we're sitting

02:49 inside the Puma. Rah. Okay, I'll never do that again. This is what the key looks like. You have

02:57 unlock, lock, and then boot, and then on the back of it, you have the Ford symbol. Looks very much

03:01 like every other Ford key. It's a proximity sensing key, so you just leave that in your

03:05 pocket, grab the door handle, it unlocks the car, and then you have a push button start.

03:09 Now, let's talk styling, because I was expecting this to look a little bit rubbish inside, but I

03:15 actually think it looks really cool. So they've got all this soft touch material across the

03:19 dashboard, and then this carbon fibre-esque material, I don't reckon it's real carbon fibre,

03:24 but that sort of goes around the dash here. So yes, it does look a bit dark and dull,

03:29 but that kind of breaks it up nicely, as does the stitching along the dashboard there. So I think it

03:34 is nicely presented, and it looks high-end and premium, and I love the look of the steering

03:38 wheel with the flat bottom too, so we'll see how that feels shortly. Now, in terms of touch points,

03:43 centre armrest is nice and soft, and the door armrest is nice and soft as well. If you want

03:48 to see how this car compares to other cars that we've tested in terms of hardness of these key

03:53 surfaces, have a look at the link in the description below. Now, what about build quality?

03:57 It feels okay. It doesn't feel too bad. It sort of feels well put together for the most part,

04:04 so it should stand the test of time. Now, what about infotainment? I think that's important

04:08 for a car in this segment, and thankfully Ford has a pretty decent infotainment system. It is called

04:14 Ford Sync 3, and this is the latest software version of Sync 3. It's an 8-inch display,

04:20 and there's shortcut buttons down the bottom, and then physical buttons beneath that.

04:24 Now, if you do want to see a full detailed review of Sync 3, click up here, but today I'll give you

04:29 a brief overview of that, plus the screen ahead of the driver. So, this is what your home screen

04:34 looks like. It comes with AM/FM/DAB plus digital radio. You also have smartphone integration in

04:39 the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but keep in mind both of those require a cable. I'll

04:44 show you what they look like. This is Android Auto. I love on Fords how the resolution is super,

04:50 super high res, so you can see here it's nice and sharp and quick, and there's no lag at all. I'll

04:55 show you what Apple CarPlay looks like. Another really high resolution integration. Look how

05:00 quick that is as well. That is seriously cool. Very impressed with that. You also have inbuilt

05:06 satellite navigation just on the screen itself, plus a feature that I really like, which is Ford

05:10 Pass Connect. So, this gives you wireless and remote connectivity with the car using an inbuilt

05:16 modem. Means you can stop and start the car from another location, lock and unlock it, send map

05:21 destinations to the car. In fact, if you see on the screen now, this is what it looked like when

05:25 we had it in the Ford Escape that we reviewed recently. So, that comes standard now with all

05:29 new Fords that they're releasing, so really impressed with that. Now, ahead of the driver

05:33 is a 12.3-inch display. I love this because it gives the car a really premium feel. So,

05:38 on the left-hand side, you have a speedometer, you've got your engine temperature, fuel on the

05:42 right-hand side with your engine RPMs, and then in the centre, you can basically scroll through

05:46 to see things like trip computer. You've also got traffic sign recognition, tyre pressures,

05:51 and then also settings for the car as well in a separate menu. So, it's really nice to see that

05:56 as standard equipment on this top spec. In terms of the sound system, you have a 10-speaker B&O

06:01 Play branded sound system. Then, you have one USB port up the front here, a 12-volt outlet,

06:07 and then a USB-C port inside the glove box. Over here, you also have wireless phone charging too.

06:12 Let's talk safety. I'll run through the standard stuff first. So, you get autonomous emergency

06:16 braking with pedestrian detection, you have rear parking sensors and a reverse view camera. Let's

06:21 have a look at what that looks like. It's actually pretty decent. So, you've got guidelines, you have

06:25 a trailer reversing guideline that you can zoom in on as well, and you also have the ability to

06:31 to show a slightly wider angle of the reverse view camera as well. But what about the stuff that

06:36 isn't standard? So, blind spot monitoring is optional because it's part of a package. That

06:40 package includes front and side parking sensors, a semi-autonomous parking program, along with

06:46 radar cruise control and an active lane assistant. So, it is a little bit frustrating that you have

06:50 to buy the whole package for $1,500 before you can actually get the safety items that you need.

06:55 Over to practicality, and we'll start with storage. So, let me disconnect this. We'll

06:58 have a look at where we can store our phone. So, it can live down the front there on the

07:02 wireless phone charger, and that fits a big phone as well, or you've got a center section here for

07:08 cups that it'll fit in as well. They have a little LED light on them too, which is cool.

07:11 Coffee cup easily fits in there and easy to grab as well, so you're not going to have any issues

07:16 spilling that. In terms of bottles, that can easily live in your cup holder. You've got three

07:20 of them to choose from, two of the same size. One is smaller and there's teeth there too. And

07:24 then inside the door, you have storage for a bottle plus a stack of other odds and ends.

07:29 Center console, it's tiny. So, you've got a little coin tray and it's really deep. I'll show you how

07:34 deep it is, but unfortunately, it's not very big, so you won't be able to fit too much in there.

07:39 And you have a really decent size glove box as well.

07:42 Okay, moving on to comfort, you have single zone automatic climate control and quite a

07:47 unique feature. You don't really see much in this segment, but it is a demister for the front

07:51 window. You can see the little heating elements inside the windscreen there, so that's a cool

07:56 little feature. What about the seats themselves? They are a fantastic design. I really like the

08:01 way they look. They're perforated as well, so you shouldn't get too sweaty on hot days like today.

08:06 A lot of side support as well and they just hug you in nicely. Now, the interesting thing here,

08:10 I mentioned earlier that flat bottom steering wheel, that sits so nicely in the hand. It feels

08:14 like a bit of a sports car. You've got those paddle shifters behind there and everything's

08:18 nice and easy to reach and then in terms of seat adjustment, it is all entirely manual.

08:21 Back seat of the Puma. So, while I kind of really enjoyed the front, the back is just not very good,

08:27 so there is no leg room here at all. Yes, my seat is quite far back, but my knees are well and truly

08:32 into the back of that seat. Toe room is reasonable, but headroom is just non-existent. My head is like

08:38 up against that. That's not very impressive at all. And then all of the gains they made on the

08:42 softer materials up the front, I just lost up the back here with all this cheap and nasty stuff. So,

08:47 yeah, look, you don't have a centre armrest either, so your bottle will live in the door only. No USB

08:53 charging, no air vents. You do get these matte pockets and ISOFIX points on the two outboard

08:58 seats, but outside of that, it is a little bit drab back here. This sunroof is optional. It's a

09:02 $2,000 option. I think it's a nice thing. It adds a bit of airiness to the cabin, but I wonder if

09:08 that's the reason we don't actually have any headroom back here, because it needs to sort of

09:11 hide it all the way. Okay, let's talk cargo space. I want to show you some of the clever features

09:15 here. So, you've got a power tailgate. You have a little over 400 litres of cargo space here,

09:21 but it's a clever setup. So, you've got this lightweight cargo blind that sits up here that's

09:27 easy to get rid of, but this is a dual-tiered floor. So, you've got the current setup here.

09:31 If I lift that, you can see a little section underneath there, but then if you lift that,

09:36 you've actually got a space saver spare tyre. Now, if you do want to hide things,

09:40 you can bring this up to the next level. It's got these little things that retract out of there

09:44 and then slide and lock that into position. So, that gives you a higher load floor and the ability

09:48 to hide things if you need to. Pop this back down. Then you've got a 12-volt outlet off to the side.

09:54 We'll see how our bags fit in here. So, laptop bag in there. Try fit this long ways first.

09:59 No luck there, but it'll fit in quite easily sideways. Then what you can do as well to give

10:06 yourself a little bit of extra room, you can drop these seats and that expands the space to a little

10:14 over 1100 litres. And if you do want it to be a flat floor, simply bring this back up and bob to

10:19 your uncle. So, we've hit the road in the Ford Puma. Powering this is a one-litre, three-cylinder

10:28 turbocharged petrol engine. It makes 92 kilowatts of power and 170 newton metres of torque.

10:36 It's an interesting little engine because the three-cylinder engines always have that

10:40 inherent raspiness to them. And this one's no different. It's got that little burble to it as

10:44 you get stuck into it. And I think that's a, I'm going to say cute, but a cute characteristic of a

10:49 three-cylinder engine. That's all mated to a seven-speed dual clutch transmission. Now,

10:55 while the engine is good and smooth, and we'll go into a bit more detail in a second,

10:59 the gearbox just isn't really that good. So, I'll show you what I mean here. If we come to a full

11:03 stop and I just breathe on the throttle, it kind of just surges you forward. It has nothing and

11:10 then it just surges. Once it's moving, it's fine, but yeah, just the low speed drivability of this

11:15 gearbox just really isn't very impressive. But when you put those points to the side,

11:20 and give this a little kick, you get more of that raspiness and it kind of gives you a little push

11:25 in the back. It's not the world's biggest and torquiest engine, but it is enough to put a smile

11:30 on your face and it's enough to handle things like overtaking and then getting in and around the city.

11:36 You can also manually shift if you want by going down to that M mode or just using the

11:41 paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Actually, you just select the gears that you want and then

11:46 it takes care of the rest. Okay, so let's talk fuel economy. Ford claims 5.3 litres per 100

11:51 kilometres. We are currently achieving six and a half litres per 100 k's, which is about there. So,

11:58 a pretty impressive fuel economy. Okay, I did notice something here. As I'm driving along

12:02 approaching an intersection, it's suggesting that I lift off the throttle. That's pretty cool,

12:06 because it does that to save fuel. It knows that the car will have enough momentum to coast based

12:11 on the terrain that it's on and the speed that it's doing. And it just means that you have to

12:15 trust in the car and know that if you lift off now, it will reach the end and you'll save a

12:19 little bit of fuel. Let's talk drive mode. So, strangely, you've got a whole stack of them to

12:24 choose from and you access them by pushing this button here. You've got normal, eco, sport,

12:30 slippery, trail, the absolute works. So, I don't know why this has a trail mode,

12:35 because this is exclusively front wheel drive. If you are off-road in this car,

12:39 you might find yourself in a little bit of strife, but it just adjusts traction control and gives you

12:43 a little more latitude of movement of those wheels. But let's go over to sport. We've got

12:47 a couple of corners coming up here. I'm just curious to see what it feels like. Eco mode just

12:51 sort of dulls everything down. Hey, look, the sport mode is actually pretty cool. So, it creates

12:56 a sharper throttle response, lets you hold onto gears for a little bit longer. Yeah, okay. There's

13:03 no adaptive suspension, so when you do tip it into a corner, it's all sort of going to be the same

13:09 regardless of the mode you're in. But in saying that, it actually doesn't feel too bad as you

13:13 come through these corners. It sits nice and flat and it doesn't feel too sharp or overdone. So,

13:19 really impressive that. The other thing worth calling out while we're going through a couple

13:23 of these bends is just the steering. It's really nice and responsive. It feels heavy-ish, but

13:28 it's comfortable. It's not over the top. It does have that slightly elastic feel that the Escape

13:34 has where it kind of just wants to bounce back to centre really quickly, but it's not as fidgety

13:39 about centre. So, it gives the car a lot of communication. It makes it feel nice and sporty

13:44 behind the wheel, but not over the top. So, you feel like you're doing something without it sort

13:48 of doing too much for you. Okay, so Sport mode feels good. How quick is 0-100? Well,

13:53 let's put it up against the stopwatch.

13:56 Okay, let's flick over back to Normal mode. We've just exited out onto a freeway stretch here. It's

14:13 a course-chipped country road. There is a little bit of tyre noise coming into the cabin. There's

14:18 actually quite a bit of tyre noise coming into the cabin. I'm noticing it sort of as you travel

14:23 around that 100km/h mark. That's just going to be inherently due to the tyres and a lack of

14:28 insulation with this chassis. It's not the end of the world. It's just noticeable as you're driving.

14:33 I think it's probably a little more noticeable than something like a CX-30. Okay, let's talk

14:37 ride. I think this is probably the thing that has surprised me the most about this. It is really

14:42 nice. It's not overly soft, it's not overly firm, but it feels sporty enough without being

14:48 uncomfortable. So you get that inherent sporty characteristic behind the wheel, which is what I

14:52 think Ford has tried to dial into it, but it doesn't feel over the top or overdone. So it's

14:57 really remarkable that, especially with Australian roads and how choppy they can sometimes be, that

15:02 this seems to be catered to all types of road conditions. What about turning circle? So 10.4m,

15:09 that seems about right for a front-wheel drive car, and it means that you won't get stuck doing

15:13 three-point turns all the time. What about visibility? So at the front I can see easily,

15:18 in fact you can see the edges of the car sloped down and those headlights sticking out. Visibility

15:23 out the side is good. The wing mirrors are on the smaller side, but you do have a blind spot

15:27 monitor built into those. That's part of that optional package. Visibility out the rear isn't

15:31 fantastic. It's quite a narrow window, so when you're looking out the back, you kind of don't

15:36 really have too much space to look at that rear window. It's very compromised.

15:41 Okay, so the Ford Puma. What a fun little car. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do.

15:47 It's got a perky little engine, it gets up and goes, and it makes a fun little sound from inside

15:51 as well. I feel that the front end of the cabin, it's really nicely laid out, and I think it'll

15:56 keep you happy if you're spending this kind of coin, but the second row probably leaves a little

15:59 bit to desire. So keep that in mind if you are transporting friends and stuff around. If they

16:03 are adults, they're probably not going to love you if you ask them to get into the second row.

16:07 But outside of that, I think Ford has done a really good job with this car, so I'll be keen

16:11 to see if they do like a high-performance version. Yeah, can you imagine like a raspy,

16:15 hot hatch version of the Puma coming to Australia? I think that'd be pretty cool.

16:18 So let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section below. What do you think about

16:23 the Ford Puma? Have you bought one? Have you got one on order? What are you going to buy instead?

16:27 Let me know your thoughts in the comments section, and if you did enjoy this video,

16:30 please make sure you like it. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon

16:34 as well, because it'll tell you every single time we drive cars that surprise me. But until next

16:37 time, take it easy.

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