Well I bought this 2001 Focus used when my previous Focus lease was over in Nov. 2003. It came with an after market Hella headlight kit, Xenon Body Kit, a lowering, and several other modifacations all done by Ford when the car was sold new, to celebrate its last 50 of these special editions. it had just over 57,000kms on it and came with a 150,000kms warranty on it.
December 2003: DP-FE sensor went leaving me with a check engine light on all during the weekend until I could get the car back to the dealership where I bought the car from on the following Monday. I knew what it went the moment the light came on as I had prevous happen in the previous Focus I had. They fixed the car under warranty and I was out of the dealership in less than an hour as I said check the DP-FE sensor first.
Not even 16 hours later the same light came back on, on my way to work the following day at 4 in the morning. I called the dealer later in the day told them the same thing happened, and I was told I could not bring the car in until next week as they were out of that part. I called another dealer and made an appointment, and had the car in the next day. I was told it was an error code for the MFA and the screw was not in place on the DP-FE. The MFA was reset at a cost of $157.38, and then I was lectured by the service manager that I should not have modified the car, and that this was not covered by my warranty.
Feb 2004- After 4 months of ownership the healight lighting system failed, leaving me with just the remaining parking lights and high beams and I had to use the fog lights to drive home from Toronto at 11pm in February. It was a Friday night so I knew I had to drive it like that until I could get it into a third dealership the following day.
That dealership told me that it indeed was a major issue and they would have to call Ford head office to check on a few things and to bring the car back, they had the car for over a week and told me it was not covered by warranty, and I had to pay the full amount to replace the full wiring harness and fuse box at a cost of more than $1000!!!
May, July, Sept, Nov 2004 - The car went back to the third dealership for the same headlight issue, but was easier to fix as they put in a by pass into the wiring harness when they fixed it in February, so it was a cost of $107.90 each time to replace a relay and fuse not covered by warranty each time.
January and February 2005 - Coldest 2 winter months in Ontario in a long time and the drivers side headlight glass cracked. Then one week later the high beam glass cracked followed by the same headlight issues the following week. I later found out it the light was not an OEM Ford part and was $1130 to replace the headlight units! I later removed the Hella headlights and replaced them with a complete stock headlight system from a junkyard.
No major issues since then other than the general maintenance.
If you are buying a Ford Focus, make sure you get the Car Fax report on it! If your car comes with after market lights, make sure they are checked out, and are OEM Ford Lights or approved by Ford, because when they fail they will cost you more than it would to replace them in the long run!
Otherwise the Focus is running car with little problems, so long as you keep up on the regular shceduled maintenance.
They are super cheap to run, and if you are thinking of getting after market parts for your Focus, get European parts as they are OEM Ford parts and covered under your warentee!
When you start modifying a car you can expect more problems??
Actually the mods that came on the car when I got it were fine, it was just how the Hella headlights were wired up, it's what caused the issues with the car, once they were removed I never had an issue with the lights again.
As for modding the car, I have changed most if not all the front end parts on the car to the standard European Focus parts, I have over 235,000kms on the car now and it still runs great. The only issue I have with the car at the moment is minor rusting around the 3rd brake light in the trunk. But for a 8 year old car it's to be expected.
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