Was a Geo Prizm driver

[marty39]

Some time in 2018 my 1995 Geo Prizm started costing more in repairs than the projected depreciation on a new car, so I looked for a new car. I wanted a small car with a stick shift and some of the extras the Prizm didn't have, like climate control and built-in GPS navigation. These things don't generally come together; usually stick shift is bottom of the line. But Ford promised that I could get all I wanted in a Fiesta ST. I test-drove a 2019 Fiesta ST, gleefully shifting through all six speeds. That was my car. Except that it didn't have the built-in navigation that was promised on the website, so I have a Garmin stuck to the dash.

The car feels heavier than the Prizm. Steering is heavier. Shift lever is shorter and takes more effort. It's certainly faster than the Prizm, but the Prizm was quicker. I just noticed that I can partially disable ESC with a touch of a button, and the car seems to feel lighter without it. With a little more effort I can completely disable ESC.

What I want to know is: What's the difference between disabling ESC in the ST and driving a car that doesn't have electronic stability control (like the Prizm)? If the ST is unsafe with ESC disabled, should all cars without ESC be banned from the highways?

Funny note: Some time in the mid-twentieth century Ford was advertising with the slogan "There's a Ford in your future." I laughed. No way would I want to drive a Detroit boat powered by "Detroit iron." Fast forward; there was indeed a Ford in my future. (In case you're wondering how I know anything about the mid-twentieth century, I'm old. 92 years old. Still driving, and still ignoring yellow speed signs.)

 

[WannabeST]

I'm surprised you feel like the steering is heavier on a fiesta. I have never driven a GEO before but I imagine the steering must have been like a feather. The fiesta steering is way too light for my liking and I would like to add more resistance to it.

on the ESC, if you fully disable it you should full control of sending the car however you want without any electronic interfering. I personally drive my car with no stability control or abs activated. The SE ABS module is extremely intrusive and does not like repeated hard brakes. When you leave ESC fully engaged the car will pull power to avoid any situation where you may lose control. Partially disabling it will typically allow you to push farther but not too far. If you want to have full control like you did with your GEO, just disable ESC all the way.

 

[SteveS]

Prizm was quicker? Prizm 0-60 was 10.9 seconds and quarter mile 17.6 seconds. Top speed 117 mph (theoretical). 105 hp engine.
2019 Fiesta ST 0-60 is 6.9 seconds and quarter mile 14.9 seconds. Top speed 139 mph. 197 hp engine.

Although it's been a very long time since I've driven a Prizm, I don't think the shifter takes more effort. It's one of the easiest shifters to slip from gear to gear there is. If it's hard to move your shift lever on the FiST, there's something wrong with it.

As to steering effort, the FiST does have power steering but it is turning a 205/40-17 sticky performance tire compared to a 185/70-14 all season touring tire. It also has more negative camber (vs. positive camber on the Prizm) and more caster, both of which increase steering effort. But primarily what you are feeling is steering FEEL. The Prizm has typical numb Toyota steering. Maybe that's the reason the Prizm was made by NUMMI.

The Prizm has a suspension tuned to understeer when you try to go fast. Performance cars have suspensions tuned to be more neutral, even to have oversteer (rotate). They put ESC on them to keep idiots who are trying to drive too fast from spinning and wrecking themselves and other people. This has become more necessary with the modern higher powered cars that are more capable of getting themselves in trouble. Pickup trucks with 400hp are a prime example of vehicles that are made far safer with ESC in operation. Turning off the ESC in a FiST gives you a car capable of oversteer and spinning, and possibly even rolling over if you are autocrossing and not capable of controlling it.

 

[marty39]

... I have never driven a GEO before but I imagine the steering must have been like a feather....

... If you want to have full control like you did with your GEO, just disable ESC all the way.

The Geo Prizm was a rebadged Toyota Corolla. It handled the way I expected a small foreign car to handle.

I'm surprised to hear you say that about disabling ESC—just surprised, not skeptical. All the web pages I saw about ESC said it should never be fully disabled on the highway. That was what I was skeptical of.

I just looked up "HPDE instructor." That's "High Performance Driver Education." The only high performance driving education I ever had was reading "The Art and Technique of Driving" by Moss and Carlsson.

 

[D1JL]

Dave

 

[marty39]

Actually the Prizm was quicker 0–5 mph and 50 feet. When a traffic light turned green I would often be first into the intersection and overtaken before I crossed it. In the Fiesta ST, I'm the one who does that overtaking.

The shifter in the Fiesta has a shorter throw than the Prizm, and a perceptible detent. It's not hard to shift, just slower. The Prizm shifted with almost no resistance.

Funny you should say that about steering feel. The reviews I read about the Fiesta ST said its steering felt dead. Maybe the Prizm had no steering feel. As I recall it was extremely light.

But maybe it's age catching up with me. When I decided to get rid of the Prizm I was 86; now I'm 92. I'm a little slower. Maybe it's not the fault of the ST at all.

 

[WannabeST]

I applaud you for driving an ST at 92. That is awesome to hear

 

[Capri to ST]

Welcome to the Forum, and I'm also really impressed that you're still driving performance cars at 92 years of age.
I have been fortunate enough to have some great performance cars through the years, and this may be my favorite despite the fact that on paper it doesn't match up to them.

 

[marty39]

I applaud you for driving an ST at 92. That is awesome to hear

Thank you. I do what I can with it.

 

[marty39]

Welcome to the Forum, and I'm also really impressed that you're still driving performance cars at 92 years of age.
I have been fortunate enough to have some great performance cars through the years, and this may be my favorite despite the fact that on paper it doesn't match up to them.

"Still" driving performance cars? No, I think the ST was the first car I've owned that could be called a performance car—aside from a Triumph TR-3 I briefly owned back in the 1970s. I didn't buy the ST for performance. I bought it for its small size, its stick shift, and a few extra features; the performance came extra. My first car in fact was a low-performance car, a Renault Dauphine. It could barely make 50 mph against a headwind. But it could make a U-turn in a two-lane street by sliding the rear end. Marvelous oversteer—at an airport car rental when the last car available was a Chevy Corvair ("Unsafe at Any Speed") and the customer ahead of me refused it, I gladly accepted it.

Or maybe I misunderstood. Maybe insisting on a manual transmission is by itself performance driving. I have been doing that ever since I learned to drive.

 

[marty39]

Actually the Prizm was quicker 0–5 mph and 50 feet. When a traffic light turned green I would often be first into the intersection and overtaken before I crossed it. In the Fiesta ST, I'm the one who does that overtaking.
...
But maybe it's age catching up with me. When I decided to get rid of the Prizm I was 86; now I'm 92. I'm a little slower. Maybe it's not the fault of the ST at all.

No, it's not my age, it's the ESC that's slowing the ST down. I discovered yesterday that in sport mode not only is the steering lighter, but the throttle response from a standstill is quicker. I imagine that it's the traction control. When the car isn't moving the sensors can't get any info about traction. It has to start up gradually so the sensors can get a sense of what's happening. With traction control off, it just goes.

You know, what I don't understand is that with all that ESC that's supposed to protect the innocent driver from unexpected movements, the ST still has a pronounced torque steer when accelerating hard in first or second gear.

 

[SteveS]

With nearly 200 hp you're going to get torque steer on hard acceleration at low speeds. ESC is really more about protecting you from spinning out at higher speeds.

You can control the torque steer easily enough by modulating the pressure you put on with your right foot. The car is limited in traction by the amount of rubber and weight on the road. Weight transfers to the rear when you are accelerating, decreasing traction. It will be much worse if you use tires that don't offer the greatest traction. What tires are on your car?

 

[Dialcaliper]

No, it's not my age, it's the ESC that's slowing the ST down. I discovered yesterday that in sport mode not only is the steering lighter, but the throttle response from a standstill is quicker. I imagine that it's the traction control. When the car isn't moving the sensors can't get any info about traction. It has to start up gradually so the sensors can get a sense of what's happening. With traction control off, it just goes.

You know, what I don't understand is that with all that ESC that's supposed to protect the innocent driver from unexpected movements, the ST still has a pronounced torque steer when accelerating hard in first or second gear.

Part of it is that traction/stability control isn’t there to protect against “unexpected” movements. It’s there to “protect” drivers from themselves. Modern cars have more power and more traction than they used to, in many cases more than you can really use on a public road. The consequences of the average person driving beyond their ability level are higher and so ESC is there to catch mistakes.

For someone like you that’s been driving an analog car like the prism for a long time, ESC completely off will be more like what you’re used to (just with enough power to break the tires loose)

 

[marty39]

With nearly 200 hp you're going to get torque steer on hard acceleration at low speeds. ESC is really more about protecting you from spinning out at higher speeds.

You can control the torque steer easily enough by modulating the pressure you put on with your right foot. The car is limited in traction by the amount of rubber and weight on the road. Weight transfers to the rear when you are accelerating, decreasing traction. It will be much worse if you use tires that don't offer the greatest traction. What tires are on your car?

I don't know about controlling torque steer with my right foot. I automatically correct it with the steering wheel, and after a few wags it's all over in less than a second. I could try to change the way I react....

What tires do I have? The original low-profile tires were meant for highways or race tracks. What I drove on in New Jersey was potholes. There is a perverse incentive, since either the state or the federal government, or both, I'm not sure which, subsidizes resurfacing, but not maintenance, to forgo maintenance of local roads until the road is so bad that it must be resurfaced. So within a few months of buying the car, I had the original tires replaced by BFG Advantage Sport AS 195/60R15 tires mounted on 15x6.5 Motegi Racing MR116 wheels. I thought I wanted 14 inch wheels like I had on the Prizm but the guys at the local Costco tire center told me not to.

 

[marty39]

... For someone like you that’s been driving an analog car like the prism for a long time, ESC completely off will be more like what you’re used to (just with enough power to break the tires loose)

I was also used to driving cars with naturally aspirated 2-liter engines. I would routinely skip gears and run the engine up to red-line. The ST has so much more power that I keep the RPM between 2000 and 3000 and hardly ever skip a gear. So I'm not likely to break the tires loose.

 

[M-Sport fan]

I don't know about controlling torque steer with my right foot. I automatically correct it with the steering wheel, and after a few wags it's all over in less than a second. I could try to change the way I react....

What tires do I have? The original low-profile tires were meant for highways or race tracks. What I drove on in New Jersey was potholes. There is a perverse incentive, since either the state or the federal government, or both, I'm not sure which, subsidizes resurfacing, but not maintenance, to forgo maintenance of local roads until the road is so bad that it must be resurfaced. So within a few months of buying the car, I had the original tires replaced by BFG Advantage Sport AS 195/60R15 tires mounted on 15x6.5 Motegi Racing MR116 wheels. I thought I wanted 14 inch wheels like I had on the Prizm but the guys at the local Costco tire center told me not to.

Where (about) in Joyzee are you?

The roads can be rough in some parts near here (Somerset and Mercer Counties), but generally are better than most almost anywhere else.

The factory brakes would most likely not even fit under most 14" diameter wheels, if not all of them!

 

[marty39]

Where (about) in Joyzee are you?

The roads can be rough in some parts near here (Somerset and Mercer Counties), but generally are better than most almost anywhere else.

The factory brakes would most likely not even fit under most 14" diameter wheels, if not all of them!

Northern Monmouth County. I live in Holmdel, but I think the worst roads were in or around Atlantic Highlands. The roads aren't so bad now; the worst of them were repaired within a year after I changed the wheels and tires, and I don't travel in that area any more.

I was aware of the brake clearance consideration when I was choosing the replacement wheels, but I don't remember whether I was aware of it before I ruled out 14 inch wheels. Maybe I found an exception that did accommodate the factory brakes. Anyway that's water over and under the dam bridge.

 

[M-Sport fan]

As a kid in the '60s, our family used to go to Sandy Hook almost every summer weekend, it being the closest actual swimmable beach to our home in Union.

We even knew the family which owned/ran the concessions there.

I've been to Bahr's a few times as well, way back before they built the new bridge over the bay.

 

[marty39]

I don't know about controlling torque steer with my right foot. I automatically correct it with the steering wheel, and after a few wags it's all over in less than a second. I could try to change the way I react....

Now I'm rethinking what I wrote. Why is the torque steer over in less than a second? Do I automatically lift my foot (because the torque steer started when I put it down)? Or does the ESC detect a loss of control and ease off the throttle? I may have to do some experiments, perhaps in a totally empty parking lot.

 

[marty39]

As a kid in the '60s, our family used to go to Sandy Hook almost every summer weekend, it being the closest actual swimmable beach to our home in Union.

We even knew the family which owned/ran the concessions there.

I've been to Bahr's a few times as well, way back before they built the new bridge over the bay.

Most of Sandy Hook was closed to the public in the '60s as Fort Hancock was still active. I discovered Gunnison Beach around 1970 when the only way to get there was either by boat (usually a sailing catamaran) or by walking a couple of miles along the beach. I can't get there at all now because I can't walk the half mile from Lot G to the beach.