Un-Focused Focus (Ford Focus Ghia in general)

Member Name: Poison_kitty

Product:	Ford Focus Ghia in general
Date:	15/02/09 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: engine responsiveness

Disadvantages: slightly unreliable

I bought my Ford Focus Ghia 1.6 around 12 months ago when my Rover 25 Olympic went to the great scrap-heap in the sky. It was second-hand, having only one prior owner and has an 02 registration, but i still paid around £4000 for it, and my insurance wasnt cheap either at £800. This moves it to the ceiling of what the average student can afford, if not making it completely unaffordable for that group of drivers.

There are lots of things i like about the car, one of which being the front heated screen, which given our current cold weather has meant the difference between scraping ice for 15 minutes, and watching it all melt from the comfort of the drivers seat! This is also the first time I've had remote central locking on a car, and of course the further away you can zap your car from, the cooler you look! Leaving the best until last, i love the engine response of this model, it's definitely a car to have fun in on country lanes, and even on motorways it makes cruising at higher speeds less laboured.

There are, however, several bugbears i have with this car. Starting from the inside, I seem to have less arm-room than in my rover 25, and that was a narrower car by several inches! This isn't helped by an arm rest which i can't use, because I'm small and using the arm rest i can't reach things like the hearstick or handbrake. Another thing that really annoys me is that if i want to replace the cd player with one that for example plays mp3s, or i can plug my ipod into (among the vast array of things that In-Car Entertainment can do nowadays) then i will have a great gaping hole either above the replacement cd player, because the current one takes up nearly the whole area!

Moving outside, i seem to have real problems sticking to the road, although most of the focus owners I've spoken to have reported the complete opposite. Sometimes the car has problems starting first time, but it's always started the second time, I've never had to try a third. Petrol consumption is not bad (not great either!), i can get roughly 250 miles out of one tank of petrol using mixed styles of driving.

All in all after 12 months of driving it, I'm quite underwhelmed by the car. I do wish I'd looked at other cars instead of just going on the recomendation of someone else. I'm looking forward to trading this one in soon, and trying out a Skoda...

Summary: Somewhat underwhelmed by a car tha has such great reviews

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