Key considerations
- Available for £18,000
- 1.5-litre three-cylinder petrol turbo, front-wheel drive
- First Euro Ford SUV to wear the ST badge
- Well worthy of that badge on both handling and performance
- Quite a few niggly issues but none of them major
- ’24 ST refresh replaced the 1.5 engine with a 1.0
Guess what was the best-selling car in the UK in 2023, and is more than likely going to top the sales charts again in 2024? You may or may not be surprised to learn that it is the Ford Puma. It won’t be that surprising to those who realise that it’s basically a small SUV version of the Fiesta, which for a long time was the go-to Goldilocks vehicle for those who wanted everyday motoring with an extra sparkle of fun, but it might be confusing to those who associate the Puma name with niche products like the 500-off Racing Puma.
Anyway, the Fiesta was pensioned off in 2023 by which time the Puma had properly taken over from it as Britain’s favourite car. To broaden its appeal Ford waved the ST wand over it, resulting in September 2020 in the car we’re looking at now in this buying guide. The Puma ST was the first European-market Ford SUV to get the popular ST performance makeover.
We’re restricting our enquiries here to the 2020-24 ST 1.5 which was ‘refreshed’ in the early part of 2024. When we say ‘refreshed’ we mean that the 1.5 engine was binned, leaving the 168hp/183lb ft 48v mild hybrid version of the 1.0 triple as the default ST powertrain and the Focus as the only all-petrol car in the Ford range.
At 7.4 seconds the 1.0 hybrid ST’s 0-62mph time was slower than the old 1.5’s and the only transmission you could get with it was the 7-speed dual-clutch auto, the 6-speed manual box now being restricted to buyers of the entry-model (non-ST) 1.0. Outside, the front end was revised to remind us of the recently departed Fiesta. Inside there was a larger ‘floating’ touchscreen running the latest Sync 4 infotainment system and, as per the regrettable industry trend, no more physical knobs to control the climate.
Anyway, as stated a minute ago we’re not looking at that one. We’ll be sticking with the full-fat all-petrol no-hybrid 1.5 which was available to order from October 2020. Ford did also build a limited-run Gold Edition, which was voted into existence in mid-2021 by 275,000 Ford fans on social meeja. What they apparently wanted was black paint with a grey racing stripe, gold seat stitching, gold wheels, red brake calipers, carbon cabin trim, a Quaife mechanical limited-slip differential and special badges. That’s exactly what they got. It looked better than it sounded. 350 of the 999 GEs made were sold in the UK.
Although the ST technically came out in 2020, it was late in the year so you won’t see many (if any) 2020-registered examples for sale. You will see Cat N or S cars for under £15k but the normal basement price for an unrepaired Puma ST is around £18,000. For that money, you’ll be looking at an early example with 30-45,000 miles on it, but there are enough cars on the market to make it easy for you to find later or lower-mileage examples for not much more than that.
SPECIFICATION | Ford Puma ST 1.5
Engine: 1,497cc turbo petrol inline three 12v
Transmission: 6-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 197@6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 236@2,500-3,500rpm
0-62mph (secs): 6.7
Top speed (mph): 137
Weight (kg): 1,283
MPG (WLTP): 42.8
CO2 (g/km): 148
Wheels (in): 8 x 19
Tyres: 225/40
On sale: 2021 - on
Price new: £28,495
Price now: from £18,000
Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
At 1.5 litres the aluminium, variable cam-timed EcoBoost ‘Dragon’ engine powering the Puma ST was one of the biggest three-cylinder engines on the market, but it was still one of the smallest engines to find itself in a performance-oriented car. It was essentially the same as the Fiesta ST’s but with a new air intake and roll-suppressing engine mounts. The Puma’s 197hp power output was the same as the Fiesta’s but its peak torque figure of 236lb ft was higher and delivered from a typically low point (for a three-cylinder car) of 2,500rpm.
You either liked the three-pot rumble or you didn’t. There was a graininess about the Ford 1.5 at low revs but like most triples it felt unburstable, serving up linear power from not much above idle to over 6,000rpm and chucking in the odd pop and bang on the overrun. The Performance Pack was an attractive option at £950 as it contained not only the Quaife diff (operating in conjunction with brake-powered torque vectoring) but also electronic launch control and shift lights.
Some Dragon engines have been afflicted with a random stuttering under load, with no warning lights showing. Various possible causes have been touted for this including contaminated fuel, a faulty cam position sensor or duff spark plugs, which according to Ford are supposed to be changed every two years (it’s every three for the Focus ST).
The one-cylinder cutoff system allowed you to get something like the WLTP fuel consumption figure of nearly 43mpg on a run, but that could easily drop to the high 30s in spirited use, giving a potential real-world range of 300 miles from the 45-litre fuel tank even if you were caning it. That was something you could easily find yourself doing. Although the stick for the six-speed manual gearbox (transplanted unchanged from the Fiesta ST) could seem like it was positioned a bit too low and maybe not for’ard enough, its short-throw action gave you plenty of encouragement to work the drivetrain. The odd owner found that they needed to exercise some care selecting first or third if they wanted to avoid graunching. One owner took his car back to the dealer when he noticed that the gearstick wasn’t returning to the neutral position of its own accord. The mechanic greased the linkages and the problem went away. Some Puma MHEV 155s have suffered from second gear failure or jumping out of first but we’re not aware of any particular issues with the ST box.
There was a recall to replace right-hand engine oil separators that may have been damaged prior to engine assembly but we’re not sure which model of Puma that was for. There have been many recorded issues with the original 12v Rombat batteries reading 12v when the engine was running (which is low) and going into ‘deep sleep’ power-saving mode to preserve their charge. Once the sleep message came up owners might find that their passenger side doors wouldn’t open keylessly and/or the foot-wave method of opening the boot didn’t work.
There might also be issues with the stop-start mech and sometimes there would be a total power-down. At least one owner was told by their dealer that they weren’t driving the car far enough to keep the battery charged although there was no evidence to back that up and in one case the dealership had to apologise for making that assertion. Replacing the battery with a Varta item and updating the software didn’t necessarily fix the problem. There’ll be more on this later in the story. Breakdown recovery guys discovered that disconnecting and then reconnecting the battery would get owners mobile again, and were advising them to carry a 10mm ring spanner for that purpose.
Service intervals for an ST are every year or 12,500 miles. Typical Ford dealer prices for the year one and year two services are around £220 and £370 respectively. An independent like PumaSpeed in Wakefield will do you a minor service for £100 or the major service (oil and filter, air filter, spark plugs, pollen filter, oil sump plug, diagnostic check and report on Puma ST specific problem areas) for £239. As the name suggests PumaSpeed can also tune your ST to 255hp (from £549), 275hp (from £2,299) or 315hp (X47 hybrid turbo, from £3,249). Ford’s ‘preferred’ tuner Mountune offer a SMARTflash M260 upgrade (intercooler, induction and charge pipework, throttle body, remap) that costs £717.
It pays to check the status of a used ST you’re thinking of buying because a lot of the earlier cars with the standard three-year/60,000-mile warranty will be running out of cover in 2024. That basic warranty was extendable (for around £250 a year) to five-years/100,000-miles, which put the Ford nearer to Korean rivals like the Kona or Stonic. Puma ST road tax, or VED as it’s called these days, is £180 a year. The insurance group for one of these – 22 – is lower than the Fiesta ST’s.
CHASSIS
The Puma ST was always going to be compared to the Fiesta ST and, as you would expect given that it was an SUV rather than a small hatch, it was always going to suffer in that comparison. But it was a harsh comparison because the Fiesta ST was one of the best driving small cars you could buy. Ford tried hard to get the Puma ST as dynamically close to the Fiesta as possible, lowering its ride height by 21mm, fitting Michelin’s Pilot Sport 4S tyres on larger 19-inch wheels and keeping the weight difference down to either 50kg or 10kg, depending on which corner of the internet you were in.
There’s no pleasing some folk though. Some found the Puma ST’s 25 per cent faster steering to be almost too responsive. Combined with the new twin-tube dampers, stiffer ‘force vectoring’ directionally-wound springs and anti-roll bar which increased the stiffness of the rear axle by 40 per cent over the Fiesta ST and 50 per cent over the standard Puma, the handling could seem borderline unforgiving if you were coming into the Puma ST from a less responsive car. Some testers reckoned it was unnecessarily twitchy and that you’d be better off with the 153hp ST Line model. The smart ones simply got on with enjoying the fast turn-in, rotatability and balance, all of which were top-notch not just by SUV standards but also by the standards of any good-handling small car.
The best approach was to think of the Puma ST as an SUV first and an ST second. That way you weren’t unfairly comparing it to an all-time handling great. Unrealistic expectations were stripped away and you could start having fun on an appropriate level. It was hard to get into real trouble in a Puma ST especially with the reassurance of brakes that, at 325mm front and 271mm rear, were 17 per cent bigger than the regular Puma’s.
All Pumas had automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane-keep assist and traffic sign recognition. A £650 Driver Assistance pack came with blind-spot monitoring, cross-traffic alert and evasive steering assist which used radar and a camera to detect slower-moving (or stopped) vehicles ahead. According to the early configurators the DA pack was also supposed to include adaptive cruise but in reality the cars with that box ticked didn’t have it. Owners who brought this up with dealers were given refunds for the mis-sell and the configurator was changed.
Creaking or a ‘ching’ noise when applying steering lock has been noticed on some STs. At least one owner was told that they needed new steering rack bolts. We couldn’t find any evidence of a recall or tech bulletin on this. If you can’t find the right used Performance Pack car with the Quaife LSD there are outfits who will retrofit one to a non-Quaifed ST for around £1,350.
BODYWORK
Mean Green was a popular colour for these Puma STs. Contrast black roofs looked good with any main colour. A panoramic roof was an option but judging by the rarity of them on the used market not many new buyers ticked that box.
Some cars have needed new door modules and trim pieces have been known to come away slightly from the doors. Condensation has affected some rear light lenses but that’s happened to some Kugas too. The ST had Ford’s excellent quick-clear windscreen but some owners complained about excessive ‘glare and flare’ from the elements. Washer jet pipes could get partially detached, reducing the flow to one side. Windows could ‘bounce’ down once they’d reached the top of their travel. Fully opening the window and then holding the switch down for four seconds, and then repeating the procedure with the window closed, would usually reset the mechanism.
The twitchiness that we mentioned in the previous section could bring on car-sickness, although the big windows in the back did mitigate against that a little.
INTERIOR
Being an upper trim variant the ST had wireless device charging along with its Sync3 8-inch screen infotainment system. Updates for the Sync3 don’t appear to have worked with creamy smoothness and sometimes the system wouldn’t load the media player at all. However, the sat nav was good and the voice control worked pretty well too. Smartphones of both the Apple and Android varieties were catered for but only with a USB connection.
Sometimes the backlight for the infotainment screen stayed on after you’d switched everything off, giving rise to theories as to that being one possible cause of the battery drain mentioned earlier. Rear interior lights that refused to go off was another. The FordPass connectivity app that gave you remote locking and starting and car location finding hasn’t been trouble-free either. Software updates didn’t always put those problems right.
The digital instrumentation was sharp and good to view although some owners have experienced flickering issues. The ST got a 10-speaker (with subwoofer) 575-watt B&O audio system instead of the basic Puma’s 7-speaker setup but there wasn’t much else to rave about in the cabin, other than the presence of physical control knobs that were about to disappear in the ’24 refresh but of course you wouldn’t have known that at the time.
The front Recaros were well bolstered and not punishingly firm. Legroom could seem a bit tight for tall adults seated in the second row but the headroom was OK back there and as a bonus for non-sporting passengers the Puma ST was 1 decibel quieter inside than the Fiesta ST. The use of leather for the steering wheel and gear lever and the faux-suede seat coverings took the ambience level just high enough for it not to feel cheap.
The 456-litre boot had a drainable 80-litre ‘MegaBox’ under the floor, a typically thoughtful family-friendly Ford feature that you could use to take stinky stuff to the tip without having to worry about it. Clipping the boot floor to the back of the seats allowed you to stand two golf bags up in the recess for their final trip to the tip after one bad round too many.
There have been issues with disconnecting parcel shelf clips, which allowed the shelf to hang limply from the tailgate. A recall was issued on 300 Pumas built in 2023 to rectify faults with the Restraint Control Module which was meant to warn of incorrect replacement parts installed in the seatbelt pretensioner and airbag systems. Some very early cars were recalled to fix airbag retention springs that might not have been locking the airbag to the steering. There was another recall on all 2022 Pumas (and Kugas) to fix a fault with the SOS eCALL system, following an earlier one in 2021 to do with the software for that system.
PH VERDICT
Although we’re not sure about the ’24-on 1.0 Puma ST, the 2020-24 1.5 version that we’ve looked at here was more than capable of providing enough ‘ST-ness’ to satisfy a demanding owner. It could put plenty of fun the driver’s way without putting the driver in harm’s way.
Obviously it would be foolish to expect a vehicle of this size, SUV or otherwise, to deliver huge amounts of interior space or mega towing abilities, but it was entirely reasonable to expect the ST to fulfil the more mundane needs of most average families with a bubbly side order of solo driving pleasure. And that’s what it did. If you fell asleep driving an ST you weren’t driving it right.
When it was being driven right it made demands on the bod behind the wheel, like constant concentration, but the rewards were worth it. The front end was super-darty, but given a choice between that and porridge-slow which would you pick? Hyundai’s Kona N had quite a bit more power at 276hp but its gearbox was an auto and the chassis wasn’t as much fun as the Ford’s. Nor was the Volkswagen T-Roc R’s, although the VW’s infotainment system was more on point than the Puma’s.
The ST has a record for reliability that could be described as reasonable but far from stellar. Most of the issues seemed to be niggly rather than apocalyptic, although you’d think there’d be more evidence of action from Ford on the steering rack bolts thing. By and large, owners seemed more than prepared to accept the ‘because Ford’ flaws and glitches in exchange for the driving purity which is the upside of a modern Ford, especially those wearing an ST badge.
The most affordable ST on PH Classifieds was this 2021 45,000-miler in white at £18,149. For a thousand or so more quids you could knock off a chunk of that mileage with this example in Ram Raid Red. New, you could get an ST with the desirable £950 Performance Pack for under £30k. The cheapest used PP car we found at the time of writing in May 2024 was a 21-registered car in white and just under 19,000 miles on the clock, going for £20,450. The most affordable Performance Pack car on PH Classifieds was this 8,000-mile 2022 car in blue with a pano roof at £23,499.
If you like the idea of being recognised in the street by up to 275,000 people you might want to consider snaffling this 24,000-mile Gold Edition. The sticker price was £21,399, though you might want to budget a little more than that to replace the Royal Explorer front tyres. The priciest ST on PH was this one at £27k on the nose.
1 / 10
