Ford Focus Review: Ford - Short for Found on Road Dead?

In 2000, we needed a new car badly. The car we had was a Mercury that was almost 20 years old. It had lived a long and productive life and we'd put very little money into it over the years. All we had basically done was change the oil, have it tuned up, bought one set of brand new tires, which were very expensive, kept the fluid levels checked and put a couple of set of brakes on it. Now I'd say that's excellent for a 20 year old car.

Since Mercury is made by Ford, we decided to buy from them again. That was a huge mistake. We found a nice 2000 Ford Focus wagon that we thought might be nice when we took the odd trips. We took it for a test drive and decided it would fit our needs.

When we had owned the car for only seven month, we had to change a tire. That is something that can be expected, but a tire that was put on in the factory when the car was made should last more than seven month. It got a huge bulge on the wall and the garage where we bought the new tire said it was factory defective. We contacted the dealer, but he wouldn't do anything about it. After fighting with him for two weeks solid, I gave up.

That was in January. In February, we had to have a part of the computer changed. That was $700 and something we couldn't afford to fix on a car that was less than a year old and was supposed to have a warrantee for 3 years or 65,000 kilometers. We bit the bullet when the dealer gave us the runaround and paid the bill. In April, a hose blew on the car and wrecked the belt when it got caught in it. Again the dealer gave us the runaround and I was getting very, very angry because the bill was once again over $700. How much of this could we take? The Ford Focus had cost us more in less than a year than the Mercury did in twenty.

That wasn't the end of the story. In July, we planned a trip to Kentucky to see some friends. We had the car serviced and the next day the engine light came on. Once again, it was a part of the computer that had to be replaced. However, it only cost us a little over $400 this time. Again, the dealer said there was nothing he could do.

The very next day we were heading out of town on our trip and just as we were about to take the off-ramp onto the highway, the engine light came on again. I blew my top! It didn't really do any good because most of the garages and our personal garage, where we have dealt since my youth, were closed. It was Friday night and it wouldn't re-open until Monday. If we didn't leave, we wouldn't be able to take our trip. Our time was limited.

We went back to a shop that was open until 9 pm and the man told us that the STP we had used to clean the fuel injector had ate a whole in one of the hoses. It wasn't costly, but he would be unable to get one until Monday. He offered to give us a temporary fix that he would fashion himself. He said it would get us to Kentucky, but to have it replaced within a month or we would have further problems. It took him about three quarters of an hour to fix it and $78.

We did go to Kentucky and had a safe trip with no further problems. When we arrived back home, we took it back to the garage where the mechanic had fashioned the temporary hose and asked him to order a new one. It was in the very next day and it cost us a total of $48.

When all of this happened and after the first two major repair jobs, I wrote Ford and informed them that the dealership where we bought the car was not honoring the warrantee. I wrote a follow-up letter a month later. To this day, which is five months later, I haven't received a reply to either of the letters I wrote to Ford. I guess my brother was right in his youth when he used to say FORD stood for Found on Road Dead. I will never buy another Ford product in my entire life and I suggest strongly that you look at cars other than those made by Ford.