The Fiesta is fairly nice looking from the outside. Then when you get inside and sit in it the quality fails miserably. It is cheap looking and very cramped. I am only 5’9” @ 180 lbs and felt like I was in a mummy bag, way too cramped, the interior and instrumentation looks cheap and is not driver friendly or intuitive at all. Even the sales person could not figure out how to operate almost everything!

To add to it, almost the entire car is built in Mexico, which means cheap crap that will fail and fall apart. The only thing worth purchasing made in Mexico, is Tequila. Every company that moves manufacturing of anything to Mexico fails miserably. I had over 30,000.00 in Ford stock and after test driving a few of their cars recently and seeing that they were now building them in Mexico, I sold all of my Ford stock and changed my mind about purchasing Fords.

Toyota, my first new car; we all know too well how Toyota has turned the corner on customer loyalty, or rather lack of. My first new car was a Toyota in 1981. It was the best new car I have owned of the six new cars so far that I have now purchased, until I just purchased the Honda CRZ.

About two years ago I was considering purchasing a New Toyota Prius and started my research. I saw so many owner complaints on Consumer Reports on-line a few years ago about their problems with the Prius that were exactly the same ones we are all hearing about this last year, and Toyota did nothing to help their customers with the multiple problems they were having. I will never purchase another Toyota due to this.

Honda is and has always been rock solid and I love my new CRZ. I commute from the mountains to the city every day, about 50% mountain driving and 50% highway – City and have been consistently averaging 39-41 MPG. I own a CRZ and have put almost 1000 miles on it now and can honestly tell you all that this is a great car on all levels and expectations that are reasonable. Most probably the best car for the associated cost available, if you can live with a two seat vehicle.

The CR-Z looks great, however I like to take my daughter and two large grandchilden with me, with the CR-Z I would have to pack them into the “trunk area” which I believe they would not like..

Mileage is thus:

MILES TOTAL GALLONS AVERAGE
Prius 2006 2963.8 $174.85 77.569 38.428
Prius 2007 19501.9 $1,406.33 494.887 39.464
Prius 2008 15280.6 $1,289.08 356.551 40.903
Prius 2009 15971.5 $924.34 378.745 41.435
Prius 2010 11677.7 $785.51 280.151 41.658

Average…… 65395.5 $4,580.11 1587.903 40.378

-As long as hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles have kind of a “hair shirt” image, their popularity will suffer somewhat. After all, new cars are expensive, they often project an image, and people often spend much time in them. I’ve talked with people who considered hybrids but concluded that, like public transportation, hybrids are great — for somebody else. Vehicles like the CRZ should help break the association of “enjoyable” with “wasteful engine,” just as Lincoln’s new hybrid should help dissociate “luxury” from “bloated.”

It looks CR-Z has better fuel economy than Fiesta:
manual 11% better in city, same for hwy;
auto 21% better in city, 2.5% worse in hwy.

Furthermore, I read reviews saying that CR-Z gets similar if not better acceleration in M/T, about 3/10 sec worse in CVT.

Fiesta vs. CR-Z:
CR-Z, no rear seats;
Fiesta, useless rear seats.

I do agree that the Fix is the most direct Honda to compare with the Fiesta, but for Ford it is using the Fiesta to go head to head with the Fit and CR-Z.