Have to keep in mind that the Focus facelift was a goof. It was justified to Ford management on the basis that it would be cheaper than bringing over the European version and building it here, but it turned out to be more expensive in the end. Sometimes (like with houses) it's cheaper to start new than to do a big renovation.
It's not like the European Focus platform is intrinsically expensive, after all Mazda can afford to build it in expensive Japan and freight it over here, and it wasn't
that much more money than the ages old Focus built in cheap Mexico.
If you think most American consumers abandon vehicles after 60,000 miles, you don't know middle America very well. Since it's typical for an American to drive 12,000 miles per year, that means that people would throw away cars when they're five years old. The fact that the roads here are absolutely dominated by cars which are over five years old can't be reconciled with your theory.
Agree with Mitlov here. Because Europeans (AFAIK) generally don't put the miles on that we do, have a much larger proportion of 'company cars', and have more aggressive junker laws, compared to NA long term reliability is not as important as performance, style, etc.
Which is one reason Toyota and Honda have not succeeded nearly as much in Europe, while Fiat, Peugeot, Renault, and Citroen survived and even British Leyland managed to hang on for quite a while.
