2014 Ford Fiesta
This year drew an ordinary 502 complaints for a Ford Fiesta — the model's median is 258. What they were about is the unusual part: 9.4% of them mention acceleration, against 3.5% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 502 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 258 |
| Involving a crash | 23 |
| Involving a fire | 8 |
| Recalls | 7 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 30 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- acceleration — 9.4% of this year's complaints, against 3.5% across the model's other years (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: acceleration, delayed.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
THE 2014 FORD FIESTA HAS A VERY SLUGGISH SHIFT BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND GEARS AND THE UPSHIFT BOGS DOWN AS IF THE VEHICLE MIGHT STALL. THE TRANSMISSION DEFECT INCLUDES BUCKING, KICKING, JERKING, HARSH ENGAGEMENT, AND DELAYED ACCELERATION AND LURCHING. I HA…
THIS VEHICLE HAS A TRANSMISSION THAT CAUSES BUCKING, KICKING, JERKING, HARSH ENGAGEMENT, ROUGH SHIFTS, SHUDDERING, DELAYED ACCELERATION, RED-LINING PRIOR TO SHIFTING, AND FEELING LIKE IT IS RETURNING TO NEUTRAL DURING STOP. THIS ISSUE HAS BEEN TURNED OVER TO T…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 17V209000 ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING Fixed free of charge.
- 17V210000 LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES Fixed free of charge.
- 15V246000 LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES Fixed free of charge.
- 15V005000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 14V402000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 20V177000 LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES Fixed free of charge.
- 20V331000 LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Fiesta was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2014 Ford Fiesta? What happened to yours?
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