Ford Focus MK1 - Owners Review

The Ford Focus first emerged into the world in the spring of 1998 and through the intervening years it has been the best selling car in the UK with over 860,000 models sold from dealerships. It is still selling very well today with 7,934 cars sold in July 2009 (only beaten by the Fiesta, 8,976) as Ford became one of the first car manufacturers to see an upturn in their sales since the start of the recession. When it was first released its sleek exterior design was seen as being quite edgy and, combined with the performance and safety of the car, has redefined the medium sized car market.

This is all well and good, but I would like to suggest an alternative view, that they are in fact, terrible. I may be in a minority here but many great men have been in such lonely places as this, Sir Edmund Hillary or Scott of the Antarctic spring to mind as a couple of humble examples. So I will trudge boldly on and give three crucial reasons as to why you should not buy a Ford Focus, that is, three reasons more important than - they are boring, everyone has got one and the ride is not as precise as they make out.

I should point out that my opinion has been formed after driving the Focus, the much better, Seat Leon, and the absolutely atrocious Nissan Almera. I think the Focus sits firmly in the middle of this quality spectrum.

This is part of a car where the phrase “simple but effective” rings so true. All you need is a sturdyish piece of plastic next to the clutch pedal, fastened at a slight angle and hey-presto, you have a comfy foot rest. If you clock up a lot of motorway miles then some sort of foot rest will help to make those miles less of a chore and when stuck in traffic for minute after infuriating minute a foot rest feels almost like heaven.

I should admit that this is of particular importance to me due to an injury to my left ankle in a game of football. It was a fairly severe injury and 12 months down the line it is still not back to normal, for this I hold my Focus and the Ford motor company partly (only a very small part, but partly) responsible.

Leaky cars are never fun, especially in a country like Britain where there is an ample supply of rainy days to remind you of every little crack that lets water seep into your otherwise cosy interior. All cars have ‘character’ of some sort, be it leaks, strange patterns of mist on the windows, quirky creaks, etc, but these traits are usually fairly consistent. They are the sort of thing that help you fall in love with your car and they tend to happen at regular intervals or in response to particular stimuli, cold mornings for example. So when I was confronted by a random puddle in the passenger foot-well one morning I thought that maybe my car was trying to get know me a little better, letting its guard down and showing me its personality. But no, it was an unexplainable one off incident that has driven us apart, a cruel trick, an arrogant stunt and, if I may be dramatic, the beginning of the end. It was quite a shock initially as you tend to drive through puddles when in a car rather than sit next to them, but once I collected myself I began a thorough investigation. Nothing in the car was wet apart from the foot-well. No damp spot in the roof, no trickle marks from any part of the door jamb, no containers in the car that could have let the puddle escape in the night and surely it couldn't have seeped up from underneath? Some under-carpet seepage could have created a damp patch but not a puddle, gravity would have said no. So I did the only sensible thing you can do when faced with such a problem, I ignored it, and sure enough the problem went away. I have not had any further problems with leaks of any kind despite several much more torrential downpours and a couple of fairly long distance drives in heavy rain. You may be thinking, problem solved, what are you worrying about, let it go, but if my car can throw a puddle as a curve ball one day, what can I expect the next? I no longer have any trust in my stead, I've been betrayed.

Now I don’t claim to be an expert on doors, I don’t design or make them or spend much time thinking about the merits of one door over another, but I do use them quite a lot and to me a door without a handle can only really be described as a wall? So when I discovered that there is no handle on the boot of my Focus I was a little bit upset. Sure it pops open with a click of the key fob, but has it ever managed to do that on the first click? Not once. Does the little button on the dash make the boot pop open for you? No, broken. So to be assured of getting the damn thing open you actually have to put your key in and twist, EFFORT! I really don’t think a handle is that much to ask for, it doesn’t have to be big, bulky and a scar on the aesthetic appeal of the car, just some mechanism to open the boot with my hand without using the key. For example, the Seat Leon’s badge on the boot flips up as you press it to become… A HANDLE. Absolutely amazing and a real crowd pleaser. This lack of care in the provision of boot entry causes needless delays at the golf course or when doing the weekly shopping, but more importantly, it makes you wonder where else in the car the designers have been similarly careless. 

So I think you will all agree that I have picked some pretty big holes in the design of the Ford Focus and it will only be a matter of time before the dominance of Ford, at least in the UK, begins to subside.

Do let me know your opinions on the Ford Focus or one of its competitors in the comments box below.

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