Hello everyone,
Well I guess in this afternoon's "going ons" I forgot to share this opinion with you all.
As some of you know I live / work right next to the Ford College. Today must have been either a dealer training day or a press day for the the New Focus as they had a fleet of twenty odd booming around, all on trade plates.
In pictures, I'd been concered at the tailgate seeming to be "too sloped" somehow, but in the flesh it's a whole other story. The proportions seem to be just right (although the tail lights are perhaps a little thin). Panel gaps are noticably narrowed and the grille and headlight arrangement give the car a noticable "snout" that somehow works.
Overall, it's a very nice looking car. Not beautiful, but not ugly either. Just competent. Exactly what you'd expect from a Ford.
Oh, and not content with ripping off VW's interior design, most of the fleet were painted in what can only be called Mercato Blue. The rest were silver.
Deek.
The New Focus - seen in real life
-
des_pd_ tdi
- Gold Member
- Posts: 568
- Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 5:17 pm
- Location: London
I'll probably be shot for sayting this but I'm quite tempted by the new Focus.
Not wanting to be another 'wife, kids, two bed semi, thirty something Focus driver' statistic. I'm there on two counts, I'm saved by the fact that I own a Bungalow but if next year pans out the way I think it's going to then I'll need a larger/safer car (New Focus tdi) to accomodate the family
I'd prefer to drive round in a ncap 5 car and I'm not happy with the quality concerns of the new Golf so it looks like I'm going to be another statistic.
Des
Not wanting to be another 'wife, kids, two bed semi, thirty something Focus driver' statistic. I'm there on two counts, I'm saved by the fact that I own a Bungalow but if next year pans out the way I think it's going to then I'll need a larger/safer car (New Focus tdi) to accomodate the family
I'd prefer to drive round in a ncap 5 car and I'm not happy with the quality concerns of the new Golf so it looks like I'm going to be another statistic.
Des
i thought the ford ka was frightening to drive!
orriible car
the current focus is alright to drive, xcept for sounding a bit like an old fiesta at times
one annoyance for me, was the vents on the front right arent posable enough to get them to point far enough way from the steering wheel
on a 4 hour summer drive in a hire car to devon with a a couple o lads in the car, with the air con on, and me being the only driver was simply not nice for my right hand
as it was freezing, cos i couldnt get the vent to not blow cold air on my hand
orrible
i'd stay vag i think, must admit honda and their type r's tempt me, but i sorta think - hmm whats performance when i sit in traffic, so audi is the way to go..
orriible car
the current focus is alright to drive, xcept for sounding a bit like an old fiesta at times
one annoyance for me, was the vents on the front right arent posable enough to get them to point far enough way from the steering wheel
on a 4 hour summer drive in a hire car to devon with a a couple o lads in the car, with the air con on, and me being the only driver was simply not nice for my right hand
as it was freezing, cos i couldnt get the vent to not blow cold air on my hand
orrible
i'd stay vag i think, must admit honda and their type r's tempt me, but i sorta think - hmm whats performance when i sit in traffic, so audi is the way to go..
-
bstardchild
- Moderator
- Posts: 3057
- Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2004 9:53 pm
- Location: Norfolk - "Its just Black & Dirty"
-
carmadaaron
- Bling Bling Diamond Member
- Posts: 4350
- Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2004 8:55 pm
- Location: Scotland
put it this way...
i knew someone that bought a brand new KA, Ford cheked it over and gave it a full inspection before it left the garage and she left her money. She drove it for about 20 miles before she heard clunkings coming from the front wheels. She called her dad and he drove it back to his house and got it up on the ramps to find....
Both front springs fractured in 2 places and completely split in 2 places!!!
thats how bad it is.
i knew someone that bought a brand new KA, Ford cheked it over and gave it a full inspection before it left the garage and she left her money. She drove it for about 20 miles before she heard clunkings coming from the front wheels. She called her dad and he drove it back to his house and got it up on the ramps to find....
Both front springs fractured in 2 places and completely split in 2 places!!!
thats how bad it is.
-
bstardchild
- Moderator
- Posts: 3057
- Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2004 9:53 pm
- Location: Norfolk - "Its just Black & Dirty"
A good friend of mine bought a brand new Ford Granaga Cosworth - Fully PDi'd and with 12mths Tax in the window he drove it out of the showroom.....mk2keel wrote:put it this way...
i knew someone that bought a brand new KA, Ford cheked it over and gave it a full inspection before it left the garage and she left her money. She drove it for about 20 miles before she heard clunkings coming from the front wheels. She called her dad and he drove it back to his house and got it up on the ramps to find....
Both front springs fractured in 2 places and completely split in 2 places!!!
thats how bad it is.
It ended up in a Dyke just 5 miles down the road - he couldn't understand why - he was travelling quite slowly (running it in) and the brakes just didn't seem to have any bite and the front the rear end spun round as he continued to brake into the bend and into the dyke it went....
The police accident investigation found the reason
They (the garage) had left the cardboard packing pieces in between the discs and pads (they used to be fitted to stop the pads marking the discs and causing balancing problems by pad material transfer)
Guess who got a new car
-
Tahrey1043
- Bling Bling Diamond Member
- Posts: 5184
- Joined: Thu Sep 18, 2003 1:15 am
- Location: Birmingham! Enjoys: The pseudo-G-Smiles provided by a 1.6 Megane Sport valver...
- Contact:
i wouldnt have a Ka, i'm sure they've got their niche in the cutesy/first car/shopping buggy market, but pretty nasty to ride in either the front or back of, especially the back, and their engines are all the ones they couldn't get away with putting in the fiesta, because fiesta owners were a bit more concerned with things like refinement, economy and performance than novelty cheeky styling and having a very short arse car 
(when the exhaust pipe sticks out far enough from the bumper to threaten your shins when you walk round the boot --- design flaw? --- you know theres some mini-age going on)
the name means "mosquito" in japanese by the way (fitting and probably intentional!) and is pronounced with as short an "a" as you can get away with. (people that call em "kay-ay"s.. c'moooooon!
)
the final judgement comes: would my mum walk over hot coals for one. Answer - yes. Therefore it's probably not much cop. best described as a boil washed early 90s fiesta (from when they still had that natty sounding pushrod engine - it may be no good for anything and loud enough for 2 or 3 normal engines, but I love the noise they make. like a hundred hornets trying to escape from an over amplified biscuit tin.. it just sounds angry)
The fiesta, i cant offer much comment on the modern ones, but the one i learnt in (up-to-the-minute... in 1999) seemed alright. Power steering was too light, midrange power non existant (probably a detuned "tuition edition") and the seat ludicrously DVT inducing on the legs, but otherwise a decent, quiet, fairly refined automobile.
focus..... it wins
the new one however - i just saw it on 5th gear - is it or is it not a mazda 3? (mazda 6? i dunno... its some kind of mazda) or quite possibly heading towards a 323 in its styling.
either that or ive lost my nut and am meaning to say toyota avensis. one of the two. they're probably interchangable. might even be one at the front, t'other at the rear. but those styling cues are 100% all-old and japanese to boot.
wouldnt surprise me seeing as ford and mazda go back quite a ways (e.g. the mazda 121 being badged as the fiesta in the states - whoopsie!)... why not emulate rover/honda, the whole of VAG, vauxhall/opel/GM, all french/italian marques.. etc.. and do a bit of body tooling swapping?
(when the exhaust pipe sticks out far enough from the bumper to threaten your shins when you walk round the boot --- design flaw? --- you know theres some mini-age going on)
the name means "mosquito" in japanese by the way (fitting and probably intentional!) and is pronounced with as short an "a" as you can get away with. (people that call em "kay-ay"s.. c'moooooon!
)the final judgement comes: would my mum walk over hot coals for one. Answer - yes. Therefore it's probably not much cop. best described as a boil washed early 90s fiesta (from when they still had that natty sounding pushrod engine - it may be no good for anything and loud enough for 2 or 3 normal engines, but I love the noise they make. like a hundred hornets trying to escape from an over amplified biscuit tin.. it just sounds angry)
The fiesta, i cant offer much comment on the modern ones, but the one i learnt in (up-to-the-minute... in 1999) seemed alright. Power steering was too light, midrange power non existant (probably a detuned "tuition edition") and the seat ludicrously DVT inducing on the legs, but otherwise a decent, quiet, fairly refined automobile.
focus..... it wins
the new one however - i just saw it on 5th gear - is it or is it not a mazda 3? (mazda 6? i dunno... its some kind of mazda) or quite possibly heading towards a 323 in its styling.
either that or ive lost my nut and am meaning to say toyota avensis. one of the two. they're probably interchangable. might even be one at the front, t'other at the rear. but those styling cues are 100% all-old and japanese to boot.
wouldnt surprise me seeing as ford and mazda go back quite a ways (e.g. the mazda 121 being badged as the fiesta in the states - whoopsie!)... why not emulate rover/honda, the whole of VAG, vauxhall/opel/GM, all french/italian marques.. etc.. and do a bit of body tooling swapping?