Topic: CD Article: 2008 Ford Focus SES sedan with five-speed manual transmission

[Autos_Editor]

Test Drive:


With five-speed manual transmission: Haney's test drive got off to a bad start when he had trouble shifting the manual gearbox. Was it just that particular test car or all Focuses, he wondered?  A test drive of two other Focuses revealed the answer.

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Read the article | View the photos | All the Test Drives

[The Mighty Duck]

I cannot stand the design of the new Focus.  From the tacky fake side vents to the spaced out "F   O   C   U   S" on the rear trunk lid, which might look good on other cars but not this one, it's just one big letdown.  The old Focus was nothing special, but this one is god awful.  I drove an old Focus a fair bit, and the powertrain and stickshift were nothing to write home about, either.

The only upside I can see to this car is SYNC, which seems like it's a fairly well thought out and well executed idea.  But really, SYNC doesn't do anything a good aftermarket stereo headunit won't do, and I wonder why anyone would buy the Focus over its vastly superior competitors like the Civic, Mazda3, and even (imo) the Cobalt/G5.

[sailor723]

If some new cars are a "home run" this one sounds like Ford grounded out to first. It could turn out to be a very serious mistake for Ford. I don't think any of the old big 3 can afford many more screwups when it comes to new product.

[Thinking Out Loud]

Buy the Sync for 19,998 and Ford will throw in a rolling carrying case of your choice in colour for a $1.

And, if you call in now, for a limited time, we'll throw in a SECOND Sync with rolling carring case for free!

Call NOW....

It's great Ford is selling an almost 9 year old vehicle for 2008 prices. 

If you can't make money on a vehicle who's tooling was paid off years ago, it'll be a race to Chapter 11 between the not-so-Big-3, if you believe recent news reports and financial analysts....

[Greg B.]

I cannot stand the design of the new Focus.  From the tacky fake side vents to the spaced out "F   O   C   U   S" on the rear trunk lid, which might look good on other cars but not this one, it's just one big letdown.  The old Focus was nothing special, but this one is god awful.  I drove an old Focus a fair bit, and the powertrain and stickshift were nothing to write home about, either.

The body design looks like something that should never have made it off someone's computer screen. It is bland yet offensive... not an easy thing to do. The old Focus was a bold step for the times (cast your mind back to 1999 when it was introduced)... not everyone liked it at first, and I still don't care for the excessive wheelwell flares, but over time, the design grew on me. Same with the interior/dashboard. At least it looks like they tried. With this one, I don't know what they were thinking.

The only upside I can see to this car is SYNC, which seems like it's a fairly well thought out and well executed idea.  But really, SYNC doesn't do anything a good aftermarket stereo headunit won't do, and I wonder why anyone would buy the Focus over its vastly superior competitors like the Civic, Mazda3, and even (imo) the Cobalt/G5.

Sync will appeal to a certain segment of buyers, but for many it's like the selectable floor lighting color, a gimmick. And for that segment, I somehow doubt if the rest of the car will be very appealing at all. The loss of the hatchback and wagon bodies, and the addition of a coupe design that is reminiscent of the boring '02 Civic coupe, is another strike against it. Yet it seems to be selling at a decent pace. Don't understand why.

[Thinking Out Loud]

Quote:

"It just so happened that our green test car (actually the car was blue, but its engine was green), with but 150 km on the clock, was suffering from a misaligned gearbox. I don't know what the technical term is for the problem - the car is still in the shop as I write this - but basically the shift gates were guiding the stick into not quite the right places."

It's called crap. 

In 150 kms of pre-test driving, appearantly nobody at Ford shifted the car outta 3rd gear.....wonder if the PDI person got axed for signing off on this 'inspected' PRESS fleet vehicle.   

[FDB]

I've owned and driven an 03 Focus ZX5 for nearly four years and just got the chance to drive an 08 Focus SE.  After driving this car I came to ther realization that there is absolutely no incentive for me to trade my 03 model in for the 08.  The seats and the interior in the 03 model are much more comfortable and also (in my opinion) more stylish.  The worst feature of the 08 model is the style that leads to such a horrible back window.  I could not adjust the interior mirror in such a way that I could actually look out the back window.  Not having a hatch model is also a real downside.
Having said all that, the 08 focus is still a pleasant vehicle to drive.  There is simply no reason to trade an older and still reliable focus to this newer version. 

[initial_D]

Quote:

"It just so happened that our green test car (actually the car was blue, but its engine was green), with but 150 km on the clock, was suffering from a misaligned gearbox. I don't know what the technical term is for the problem - the car is still in the shop as I write this - but basically the shift gates were guiding the stick into not quite the right places."

It's called crap. 

In 150 kms of pre-test driving, appearantly nobody at Ford shifted the car outta 3rd gear.....wonder if the PDI person got axed for signing off on this 'inspected' PRESS fleet vehicle.   

No. The parts supplier gets the blame.

[Diesel Advocate]

Buy the Sync for 19,998 and Ford will throw in a rolling carrying case of your choice in colour for a $1.

And, if you call in now, for a limited time, we'll throw in a SECOND Sync with rolling carring case for free!

Call NOW....

It's great Ford is selling an almost 9 year old vehicle for 2008 prices. 

If you can't make money on a vehicle who's tooling was paid off years ago, it'll be a race to Chapter 11 between the not-so-Big-3, if you believe recent news reports and financial analysts....

I'm still laughing . Great post!! The 2008 Focus has to be IMO the worst product Ford has bought to market since the er... Contour, Taurus, Crown Vic, any truck (not Escape) to name but a few. I grew up with Ford's Europe lineup, so you can imagine my hatred towards Ford's NA lineup. I've always said that the big 3's domestic vehicles are 10 years behind in terms of design, engineering etc, and the Focus is right there for all to see. Of everything in the Ford NA lineup, only the Fusion, et al, is worthy!

I do not look forward to the "all-new" Focus in 2010. Past history has shown that Ford NA can really screw up an excellent vehicle. The Ford Contour springs to mind as a true screw-up when they took the perfectly excellent Ford Mondeo and "modified it" for North Americans. When the Ford designers were done, only the doors were left from the Mondeo. The rest is history!

[Thinking Out Loud]

Quote:

"It just so happened that our green test car (actually the car was blue, but its engine was green), with but 150 km on the clock, was suffering from a misaligned gearbox. I don't know what the technical term is for the problem - the car is still in the shop as I write this - but basically the shift gates were guiding the stick into not quite the right places."

It's called crap. 

In 150 kms of pre-test driving, appearantly nobody at Ford shifted the car outta 3rd gear.....wonder if the PDI person got axed for signing off on this 'inspected' PRESS fleet vehicle.   

No. The parts supplier gets the blame.

Doesn't relieve Ford of the excuse of handing over the keys of a brand new, already-broken-out-of-the-box loaded car to, of all people, an AUTOMOBILE journalist.

It's like Ford is beyond caring.  Eliminate the two hatches and the wagon, add a coupe nobody asked for, beat it with an ugly stick (IMO), try to sexy it up - with of all things - Bill Gates (software), and then add mood floor lighting.  Bill likes that, and Melinda, I guess.  Pull the pricetag off and don't bother checking to make sure we've got our best foot forward, as they say in the sales world.

The 'newish' Focus has met with, at best, mixed reviews.  Unless Ford has it's rose coloured glasses set to 'Bleeding RED Ink', they need all the positive press they can get.

Starting an article with 'they still havent figured it out as I am writing this' and actually noting that "I couldn't overcome that initial disappointment even after spending a week with the car." proves how you can't afford to get sloppy.

An honest mistake, absolutely.  One Ford can afford to make, absolutely NOT.

[Honda Owner]

There is no way a car with 150 km and this obvious problem should have EVER made it into the hands of of a customer and DOUBLY so a press car. It is completely unacceptable. The car must have been driven onto the truck, off the truck and then a mechanic was paid to PDI it.

Is it any wonder Ford and GM are going bust? I have worked in the domestic stores and believe me, they are best avoided.

[Eric Green]

Having recently driven the 08 Ford Mondeo in Eire, I can confirm that Ford Yurp knows what it is doing. But Ford <i>NA</i>? Pathetic. This Focus-thingie is an embarrassing POS. Mulally  should be ashamed of this outdated appliance.

[PJungnitsch]

This car is from before Mulally's time, he's causing a lot of fundamental shifts in how Ford operates. Pretty good article on that here:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/21/news/companies/saving_ford.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008042205

[Mitlov]

That transmission thing sucks. 

But Edmunds' Inside Line got a long-term Honda Fit that couldn't shift into reverse.  One of their testers took it Christmas shopping, and had to get out and push the car out of the parking space.  These things don't solely happen with Ford, so let's not act like ONLY FORD would supply a magazine with a car that has a f---ed up transmission.

[Eric Green]

P Jungnitsch:

Absolutely true; thx. for the article link.

Mulally drove Boeing to excellence, but not through building the Boeing 7Focus7 or the 7Edge7. He appears to have rapidly grasped the fact that Ford is a truck company that also builds the Mustang- neither product of which the market wants. Further, he appears to have driven Ford Europe product, and understands the concept of market preference. It will be the 010 Fiesta that signifies whether FordNA finally "gets it" (and whether Ford NA will continue to exist at all). I reckon that Mulally's team is truly FordNA's last, best only chance at survival.

 

[Honda Owner]

Mitlov, in the car business, there is a big difference delivering a car with an obviously defective transmission and one that develops a fault at a later time. It is totally unacceptable. Any warranty concern within the first year is DEATH on your CSI score. Dealers are closed due to bad CSI, which is usually caused by their retarded flat rate mechanics not wanting to do warranty work.

Want to know what happened to that Focus? Well the mechanic that did the PDI was paid 1.5 hours to do the job. Mechanics love PDIs. The makers pay well on PDI jobs because they want a careful check of the car. In this case, and I am 100% sure this happened, the mechanic was trying to make up a nice paycheque. He had a whack of PDIs and saw dollar signs. He took the car for a spin and noticed the transmission problem. The then said to himself, "The customer will never notice." Why, you ask? Well, he was probably the shop tranny guy. If he reported the problem he was going to have to fix it.

There are two labour rates at a domestic dealer, retail and warranty. A transmission tear down on retail would pay about 16 hours. On warranty it would pay 9 hours. He sees doing this job as losing seven hours on his paycheque.

Toyota and Honda get around this by paying the same rate for warranty or retail jobs. This has the effect of making sure that warranty repairs are not rushed through the shop, or even worse, reported as "no fault found."

I also suspect that Edmund's Fit had the bag run off it since it went through two sets of rotors in a year. Hondas don't go through rotors unless you are seriously abusing them. Brake noise is one of the major reasons that new cars come back to dealers in the first year. The domestics, by the way, use notoriously crappy brake pads to save money. They also make lots of noise, bringing the cars into the dealers early in the ownership experience. Honda makes more money per car than anybody in the business so they can afford better brakes. It is that simple; Hondas and Toyotas simply have better quality parts in them where it really counts.

As a person who worked as a service advisor at dealerships for years, I would put my money that the Fit was being shifted into reverse while the car was still rolling. It is easy to do this in a Fit. It will also wreck the transmission.

[Greg B.]

I also suspect that Edmund's Fit had the bag run off it since it went through two sets of rotors in a year. Hondas don't go through rotors unless you are seriously abusing them. Brake noise is one of the major reasons that new cars come back to dealers in the first year. The domestics, by the way, use notoriously crappy brake pads to save money. They also make lots of noise, bringing the cars into the dealers early in the ownership experience. Honda makes more money per car than anybody in the business so they can afford better brakes. It is that simple; Hondas and Toyotas simply have better quality parts in them where it really counts.

As a person who worked as a service advisor at dealerships for years, I would put my money that the Fit was being shifted into reverse while the car was still rolling. It is easy to do this in a Fit. It will also wreck the transmission.

You are so full of it. A domestic car has a flaw that is due to a flawed, corrupt, or evil warranty regime and substandard parts, but a Honda that breaks is due to customer abuse because there is no other way anything could go wrong. You must have been a great service advisor for them.

Are you related to ArticSteve by any chance or are you an independent fanboy? 

[Honda Owner]

Greg, I word in service departments of "domestic" auto makers for many years. I know of what I speak. I know about the FFV rate of the domestics as well as the CSI.

All the domestics cheap out on brakes. It is a good way to save costs and get retail labour before the warranty is up. For example, Google "Cobalt Brakes" and see what you get. Then do the same for "Civic Brakes."

Even better, Google "Grand Cherokee Brakes" and see how many hits you get.

It is not a great conspiracy that Ford, GM and Chrysler are on the skids, Greg. It is product and service.

[Frontier1]

Greg, I word in service departments of "domestic" auto makers for many years. I know of what I speak. I know about the FFV rate of the domestics as well as the CSI.

All the domestics cheap out on brakes. It is a good way to save costs and get retail labour before the warranty is up. For example, Google "Cobalt Brakes" and see what you get. Then do the same for "Civic Brakes."

Even better, Google "Grand Cherokee Brakes" and see how many hits you get.

It is not a great conspiracy that Ford, GM and Chrysler are on the skids, Greg. It is product and service.

Hondas don't go through rotors unless you are seriously abusing them.

Greg B. is right, bull$hit!!

Honda makes more money per car than anybody in the business so they can afford better brakes.

Bull$hit again, on both counts

[Mitlov]

blah blah blah I love Honda and worked for them for years blah blah blah

Oh boy, another partisan fanboy!  Do I need to update my signature?