Fantastic Diesel (Ford Focus 1.8 Zetec TDdi 5dr)

Member Name: bradburyss

Product:	Ford Focus 1.8 Zetec TDdi 5dr
Date:	21/08/02 (1483 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Power, Economy, Handling

Disadvantages: None

What a great car! I turned up at the rental office expecting to get a Fiat Bravo or something like that. I wanted a smaller car than the awful Vectra I had last time. I was given the choice of a Peugeot 307, Renault Megane or Focus. I chose the Focus as I have been thinking about buying one. I chose the Diesel as I am used to driving my partners Peugeot 405 Td and wanted to see how it compared.

Exterior

The car was finished in Metropolis Blue (light metallic blue) and it didn't look too bad. The Alloy wheels and fog lights certainly helped the look of the car. I'm still not too sure what to make of the new nose of the car but as you don't look at it when inside I didn't give it much more thought.

Interior

I was very impressed with the layout of the car, everything fell straight to hand. The switches felt nice to press and didn't feel like they were going to fall off in your hand after a few miles. The only thing which felt strange was the radio remote control. It felt a bit cheap and I didn't see the sense in it when the radio is within reach anyway.

It took me a while to get the seat adjusted right, but once I did it was very comfortable indeed.

Visibility was good, I couldn't find the blind spot that I was warned about but then I only drove it into a parking space and reversed out a couple of times.

Driving

Being the Zetec the suspension is a bit firmer than the other models but not overly so. The upside to it is that the handling is fantastic it feels very grippy, corners flatly and never feels unwieldly at all. The steering has just the right amount of feel, the brakes worked very well. The gearbox and clutch were very smooth and easy to use. All in all everything is just right and made it an extremely easy car to drive.

Engine

WOW! What can I say. I started the car up and got the typical diesel sounding engine (reminded me of th
e Ford Transit) and driving away around town it felt like any other Diesel car. It was when I got out onto the dual carriageway and motorway where the engine really shone. The power and smoothness of it puts many petrol cars to shame! I found myself overtaking where I would normally wait for a bigger space because the engine was so flexible. I was convinced that they had put the wrong engine into it and had to open the bonnet to confirm it really was the TDdi. I have never ever driven a car that has felt as quick or powerful as this. I would heartily recommend taking one out for a test drive as you will be pleasantly surprised!!

Economy

OK so with all this power available there must be a penalty with the fuel economy right? Well the guage hadn't moved much but I thought it may be like the guage on my old Sierra that sat at full for ages then dropped to half a tank within a few miles. So off to the pumps I went to fill the car back up before taking it back to the rental office (we use Avis at work who have a full tank to full tank policy, must say they are very good but a bit expensive for private use!). I had only done 160 miles but the Vectra I had the week before cost me £16.00 so was expecting to pay about £10 to fill the Focus. Wrong! the first click of the pump came at just over £8.00! I usually round up after the second click so I ended up putting £8.50 into the tank, yes a paulty £8.50. I didn't have time to work out how many mpg that was at the time but dropped the car off and worked it out while waiting to be picked up. It worked out at 63mpg! now to me that is fantastic, I'm an average driver I did stick to the speed limit (as we all should! hehe) but didn't hang about getting to there.

I have never been so impressed with a car in my life before. When the time comes to change my current car I will definitely be down the Ford dealer looking at one of these!

Summary: