Faults:

Trim fell of head rest.

Crankshaft oil seal failed.

Needed rubber bushes to be added to front coil springs to prevent noise when cornering.

Passenger vanity mirror cover fell of.

Instrument panel not central between doors.

Numerous rattles from instrument panel.

Engine roll restrictor banged against floor pan on acceleration and gear change.

General Comments:

This car was the worst car I have ever had the misfortune to own. It spent most of the time I owned it in the dealers.

One fault could not be fixed because it was a design fault.

Eventually after numerous phone calls and dealer visits and also the possibility of an appearance on watchdog the car was bought back from me at a loss.

Faults:

I found the vibrating exhaust very irritating. This was caused by small parts in the exhaust, at least that's how my dealer explained this. It couldn't be repaired, but a good slap with a hammer on the exhaust might help. Tried it, it helped, but the noise came back soon. The exhaust was replaced later without costs.

One time my Focus went dead while driving on the highway with about 130 km/h. No lamps, no engine, nothing. I managed to steer to the highway side safely (brakes still worked, as did the steering wheel). I turned the ignition. Nothing, everything dead, no power, nothing. As I'm into computers I realized a real reset might help. So how to do a soft reset with a car? Maybe removing the keys and inserting them again? Yep. That worked. The car never experienced this problem anymore and a couple of months later (!) I received a recall-letter describing this problem - the computer needed a hard-reset to solve this. My dealer had already done exactly that.

No other problems occurred except for the many stones that seem to like the front of the Focus. I never had a car which got hit so many times.

General Comments:

This car is very quick. I'm a go-cart fanatic and the Focus Trend is quite close to go-carting. You can do almost anything with it. It's definitely fun to drive a Focus. And it's the first car I ever had which did not only just reach the printed maximum speed (185 km/h) but exceeded it quite a lot (210 km/h without any tuning!).

Faults:

The noise somewhere in the dash. This occured twice. The back passenger door would not open. Hub caps had to be replaced on a daily basis. Gasoline door latch broke twice. The major two itmes was the air conditioner leaking into the driver side and passenger. The other was the ignition key was unable to remove. Had to be replaced by a new ignition system. This took two weeks for it to come in and two weeks without my car. There have been 3 recalls that I have been advised about. The first year I had to replaced the front brakes. This year (2002) they had to be replaced again. There has been 3 sets of tires replaced due to the suspension problem. Interior of car is coming lose from the frame. Passenger side back tire looks crooked. Road noise is bad. Now the fuel pump has gone out. The cost was $400. Next day after this replacement, the focus would not start again. The wiring in this vehicle is the cost of this problem. The fuse box has melted. Service person told me it almost caught on fire. I feel I have said enough.

General Comments:

I would not recommend this car to anyone. Ford needs to revalue this car and help people who have had as much problems as I have.