Controversial? Our 2020 Ford Puma!
Discussion
Behold, its our new steed! Well, it’s the good lady wife’s daily driver if I’m being precise.
It’s a Ford Puma! An SUV Puma!
And we financed it too.
Angry yet?
Our Puma
I’m a massive Ford fan, always have been. The Mrs was on the lookout for something new and liked the Jaguar E-Pace. However, with a recent house move meaning she is closer to the office, and with me not wanting to change my very old Cayenne, we couldn’t see the point in two big cars. I suggested the Puma. We looked, she liked, we bought. Happy days!
We’ve gone for the Titanium 1.0 Ecoboost model which is petrol only. The next model up in the engine range is the Mild-Hybrid which seems like a total waste of time, with more to go wrong, and extra money but having very few of the advantages of true hybrid. The alternative to the Titanium spec is the ST-Line, which has a sporty body kit and a different interior spec.
Our Titanium comes with fully fabric seats, which we preferred to the ST as they are softer for us dodgy-back folk and a bonus that they have massage function too! Very swish! There is a touch-screen dash with all the latest tech, including a sat-nav with built in traffic, DAB radio and two USB ports for music. There is lots of driver-aid tech which I’ve not played with yet, such as lane departure warning etc, and it also has speed sign recognition which is displayed on the dashboard too.
Titanium comes with standard clocks (rev and speedo) as apposed to a full width LCD screen in the ST-Line, but this didn’t bother the Mrs and personally, I’m old school and still like traditional clocks.
Dashboard colour scheme at night is a light blue which looks really nice.
Dealer
Dealer was friendly enough – a fairly straightforward transaction with a deal that I was happy with. Collection and ordering are now devoid of glitz and extended handovers due to Covid, but he still managed to make it a special day for us and no complaints.
Sat with its stablemate. Garage decorating not yet finished, bare with me
Features
Seems a nice thing to drive, with enough room for our family of three. The boot has a big hole where you’d expect a spare wheel, and that gives you plenty of handy luggage space.
It has a 3-year warranty and 2-year or 18,000-mile servicing intervals which is great, so it should work out pretty cheap to own.
Problems
Yep!
I tried calling for an appointment at Ford to get it looked at, but that’s not easy – Ford use call centres so getting through takes forever. I called our sales rep and he said its best to come down and make an appointment with them directly, which we did. Initially we were offered an appointment for September, which we said was no good given the problem and so they moved it forward to 12th August.
First is we spotted a scratch on the rear panel when we got home, which I thought looked too deep to polish out. Another issue was the DAB radio doesn’t work which just showed “5A” on the screen permanently, and no matter what I pressed I couldn’t get it to work. We took it back to make an appointment for the third problem (which we’ll come on to) and they polished out the scratch there and then, and sorted out the DAB radio. Apparently, that was user error, but I’ve no idea what they did because I pressed every friggin’ button there was to press and nothing made it work!
Problem number three: The Alarm. My worst nightmare of any car issue is a faulty alarm system. The bloody thing just goes off at random – including in the middle of the night. Horn blaring, alarm screeching, waking up everyone on the street, and you can’t lock the car without it setting the damn thing.
On the first night, on arriving home from a meet up with some mates, I decided to put it into the garage because it wouldn’t shut up - Wifey had gone through several hours of this pain in the arse before I got home. So rather than leaving it unlocked for opportunistic undesirables to root through outside, instead at 11pm at night I was clearing out all the crap that’s in the garage to make space for the Puma – and in doing so my daughters scooter fell over and has dented my Camaro. So, that was another sodding job to do as well. £80 lighter and a visit from dent company sorted that though.
The Puma was taken in earlier this month and the issue has been identified with the interior sensors, but the parts aren’t available so we’ve got to wait until they come in. In order to fix them they’ll have to take off all the inner roof lining to replace the sensors, so I’m already expecting that sort of repair is going to lead to more problems further down the line. In the meantime, whilst it is possible to disable the interior sensors, you have to do it every single time you get out of the car, which is really annoying. There is a setting for this in the menus, but it doesn’t remember your choice, which makes you wonder what’s the point of the setting?
Overall
It’s great to have a Ford back in the family, they are my favourite brand, especially one this new with all the tech to play around with. But the problems with the Alarm has taken the shine off already and as the dealer can’t do anything until the parts arrive – with no expected date – we are left having to remember to actually turn it off it every time we take it out, which we don’t.
I'll keep this running report updated if anyone is interested?
It’s a Ford Puma! An SUV Puma!
And we financed it too.
Angry yet?
Our Puma
I’m a massive Ford fan, always have been. The Mrs was on the lookout for something new and liked the Jaguar E-Pace. However, with a recent house move meaning she is closer to the office, and with me not wanting to change my very old Cayenne, we couldn’t see the point in two big cars. I suggested the Puma. We looked, she liked, we bought. Happy days!
We’ve gone for the Titanium 1.0 Ecoboost model which is petrol only. The next model up in the engine range is the Mild-Hybrid which seems like a total waste of time, with more to go wrong, and extra money but having very few of the advantages of true hybrid. The alternative to the Titanium spec is the ST-Line, which has a sporty body kit and a different interior spec.
Our Titanium comes with fully fabric seats, which we preferred to the ST as they are softer for us dodgy-back folk and a bonus that they have massage function too! Very swish! There is a touch-screen dash with all the latest tech, including a sat-nav with built in traffic, DAB radio and two USB ports for music. There is lots of driver-aid tech which I’ve not played with yet, such as lane departure warning etc, and it also has speed sign recognition which is displayed on the dashboard too.
Titanium comes with standard clocks (rev and speedo) as apposed to a full width LCD screen in the ST-Line, but this didn’t bother the Mrs and personally, I’m old school and still like traditional clocks.
Dashboard colour scheme at night is a light blue which looks really nice.
Dealer
Dealer was friendly enough – a fairly straightforward transaction with a deal that I was happy with. Collection and ordering are now devoid of glitz and extended handovers due to Covid, but he still managed to make it a special day for us and no complaints.
Sat with its stablemate. Garage decorating not yet finished, bare with me
Features
Seems a nice thing to drive, with enough room for our family of three. The boot has a big hole where you’d expect a spare wheel, and that gives you plenty of handy luggage space.
It has a 3-year warranty and 2-year or 18,000-mile servicing intervals which is great, so it should work out pretty cheap to own.
Problems
Yep!
I tried calling for an appointment at Ford to get it looked at, but that’s not easy – Ford use call centres so getting through takes forever. I called our sales rep and he said its best to come down and make an appointment with them directly, which we did. Initially we were offered an appointment for September, which we said was no good given the problem and so they moved it forward to 12th August.
First is we spotted a scratch on the rear panel when we got home, which I thought looked too deep to polish out. Another issue was the DAB radio doesn’t work which just showed “5A” on the screen permanently, and no matter what I pressed I couldn’t get it to work. We took it back to make an appointment for the third problem (which we’ll come on to) and they polished out the scratch there and then, and sorted out the DAB radio. Apparently, that was user error, but I’ve no idea what they did because I pressed every friggin’ button there was to press and nothing made it work!
Problem number three: The Alarm. My worst nightmare of any car issue is a faulty alarm system. The bloody thing just goes off at random – including in the middle of the night. Horn blaring, alarm screeching, waking up everyone on the street, and you can’t lock the car without it setting the damn thing.
On the first night, on arriving home from a meet up with some mates, I decided to put it into the garage because it wouldn’t shut up - Wifey had gone through several hours of this pain in the arse before I got home. So rather than leaving it unlocked for opportunistic undesirables to root through outside, instead at 11pm at night I was clearing out all the crap that’s in the garage to make space for the Puma – and in doing so my daughters scooter fell over and has dented my Camaro. So, that was another sodding job to do as well. £80 lighter and a visit from dent company sorted that though.
The Puma was taken in earlier this month and the issue has been identified with the interior sensors, but the parts aren’t available so we’ve got to wait until they come in. In order to fix them they’ll have to take off all the inner roof lining to replace the sensors, so I’m already expecting that sort of repair is going to lead to more problems further down the line. In the meantime, whilst it is possible to disable the interior sensors, you have to do it every single time you get out of the car, which is really annoying. There is a setting for this in the menus, but it doesn’t remember your choice, which makes you wonder what’s the point of the setting?
Overall
It’s great to have a Ford back in the family, they are my favourite brand, especially one this new with all the tech to play around with. But the problems with the Alarm has taken the shine off already and as the dealer can’t do anything until the parts arrive – with no expected date – we are left having to remember to actually turn it off it every time we take it out, which we don’t.
I'll keep this running report updated if anyone is interested?
Really wasn't keen on the look of these when Ford first announced them. However, the more I see on the road, the more I like them! Should suit your wife well and the reviews have been very favourable, especially regarding the handling. 1.0 Ecoboost is a great engine too, I've had my 2014 Focus Ecoboost for 4.5 years and it's been totally reliable.
We are collecting one of these tomorrow, an ST-Line X FE in the Desert Island Blue shade. We are going for the 125PS MHEV - was quite happy with the Hybrid on our test drives.
Wife is changing to it from an Abarth 595 Competizione so will be quite the jump in spec and size for her though a drop in performance.
Interesting to hear of your issues, will keep these in mind myself, hopefully it’s an isolated issue and you get it sorted very soon!
Wife is changing to it from an Abarth 595 Competizione so will be quite the jump in spec and size for her though a drop in performance.
Interesting to hear of your issues, will keep these in mind myself, hopefully it’s an isolated issue and you get it sorted very soon!
Got to say, personally i think these are just as vile as the Nissan Juke....but it would be boring if we all liked the same things.
I fully expect you to have quite a few niggly faults with a new model of Ford...I used to work at the old transit factory and the amount of updated components that came along in model life cycle was amazing, the consumer was fully utilised as a testing base!.
Our work has 2 new model focus estates, one of them is constantly chucking up engine management faults....currently no faults showing but has decided that the accelerator is now a binary switch..nothing or full power, try gentle acceleration and it coughs and splutters and is almost undrivable, back to Ford it goes
I fully expect you to have quite a few niggly faults with a new model of Ford...I used to work at the old transit factory and the amount of updated components that came along in model life cycle was amazing, the consumer was fully utilised as a testing base!.
Our work has 2 new model focus estates, one of them is constantly chucking up engine management faults....currently no faults showing but has decided that the accelerator is now a binary switch..nothing or full power, try gentle acceleration and it coughs and splutters and is almost undrivable, back to Ford it goes
Cloudy147 said:
In the meantime, whilst it is possible to disable the interior sensors, you have to do it every single time you get out of the car, which is really annoying. There is a setting for this in the menus, but it doesn’t remember your choice, which makes you wonder what’s the point of the setting?
I’m just being nosey The user manual suggests you turn the ‘Ask on exit’ function on and then when you turn the ignition off you use the information display controls on the steering wheel with the toggle button to choose Perimeter Sensing. Doesn’t sound hugely onerous.. sounds like one flick (at most) and click OK?
Thanks for the replies everyone!!
The user manual suggests you turn the ‘Ask on exit’ function on and then when you turn the ignition off you use the information display controls on the steering wheel with the toggle button to choose Perimeter Sensing. Doesn’t sound hugely onerous.. sounds like one flick (at most) and click OK?Yep, thats right. There are actually two settings, one is just a fit-and-forget, so you choose which type of alarm you want and thats it. Trouble is, the car forgets what you chose and so you have to do every time you get in. The other option as you say is that the car asks you every time you turn it off. It is indeed one flick and a click of the OK. Now that's not a problem... except when you forget to do it... or even worse, you forget if you have forgot to do it and run either the roulette of a 3am wakeup, or go outside and turn the car on-and-off to get the option back up and make sure you select it. It's not hard, but it is a pain in the ass. If you could just permanently set it to partial alarm, that would be simple and I'd not even have it repaired, in order that they don't have to take the interior to bits. Sadly, you can't. 
bigandclever said:
Cloudy147 said:
In the meantime, whilst it is possible to disable the interior sensors, you have to do it every single time you get out of the car, which is really annoying. There is a setting for this in the menus, but it doesn’t remember your choice, which makes you wonder what’s the point of the setting?
I’m just being nosey The user manual suggests you turn the ‘Ask on exit’ function on and then when you turn the ignition off you use the information display controls on the steering wheel with the toggle button to choose Perimeter Sensing. Doesn’t sound hugely onerous.. sounds like one flick (at most) and click OK?
If you could just permanently set it to partial alarm, that would be simple and I'd not even have it repaired, in order that they don't have to take the interior to bits. Sadly, you can't. NDNDNDND said:
Let's get to the real question here: why don't you own a Mustang?
haha!! I wanted Bumblebee. The movie sold it to me. (running report here) Edited by Cloudy147 on Friday 28th August 19:27
As with many of the other comments, I’m surprised by how much I like these. I was a big fan of the original coupe and as with the Mustang E-thing, I do think it’s a shame that Ford are trying to make their SUV’s more appealing by leveraging the goodwill in the names, but the cars themselves look good. I’ve seen a few Puma’s in different colours now - I think the mid grey ST Line is my favourite so far but be interesting to see how the proper ST looks. With a bit of performance to go at, I’d seriously look at one for second car duties. Enjoy
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