So I bought my wife a 2012 Kia Soul, she found what she wanted and it had a great warranty. A week later I traded my truck for a 2012 Focus to get better mileage,36mpg so far combined. Everything is peachy except for the mother piss bucket hail storm that dented my week old car up... Fuck you mother nature, right in the ass... Just a rant lol
I'm gonna keep my mouth shut on this one. Hope you have great luck with the new whips, congratulations sir.
LOL Kia Soul. A guy I know bought one...it's HIS vehicle. Has all the light up components. I asked if it came with a red wig, nose that honks, and big floppy shoes. LOL
I think the Kia looks kinda cool. Most of the late generation Kia/Hyundai look nice even. Let's see some pics of the Focus!
Thoughts on the Focus so far? Seriously considering going to Ford for my next vehicle (with the fairly safe assumption that I won't be purchasing a luxury vehicle instead).
I just rented a 2012 Focus (returned it about 2 hours ago) for a trip while my Jimmy was in the shop. I must say, I am VERY impressed with that car. It's a far cry from the Ford Fuckus days.
I like the Soul styling, sure beats the boring-as-fuck cars we've gotten used to. I mean, think about it: What cars being built today will be showing up at cruise-ins and shows in 30 years? Daring designs like the Soul, Cube, etc. But yeah, the Focus just HAD to get better. My Mom owned a 2000 and it was a royal piece of shit.
I had a 2001 Focus and I liked it but it had issues. I am averaging 36 give or take MPG and the ride is nice. It is fun to drive but can be sluggish if you don't pay attention to how it accelerates. It shifts frequently to improve mileage so if you need to go from a dead stop you have to get on it and it will go. I love the Sync and all the features with it, Sat etc. The USB plug is nice. The sport package adds a dual clutch that is a little rough at low speed but at speeds of 55+ it is smooth as silk. I didn't go with the sport since it added 2k as they all had added wheels etc.
I was standing on the street corner at Ohio University yesterday and a new 2012 Focus rolled by. Nice looking car. I actually did a double-take. Hopefully the quality has improved. Ford did a lot better by the end of the decade but in the last year or so has started to slip again. That has been there problem all along - they can make a good car, but you never know when they're doing it. The last few times I've bought unfortunately they weren't.
We traded my Wife's 2007 Mustang, it had 158,000 miles on it and it was in perfect shape. It ran great and we only had to spend ~$200 for non routine maintenance, the intake manifold had a problem and the valve would freakout so the car would force idle, Ford repaired it outside of warranty no problem.
A brand new one? I... erm, spent some time with a '07 Focus. It had 75k on it, and the thing was completely destroyed. Granted that the owner was a huge part of the reasoning for that... it had been rear ended and "fixed" twice (the body shop couldn't even get the body lines straight); not to mention you could feel the car dogtracking down the expressway, and the back end would bounce to the side when you hit a bump. Also, both mirrors broken off multiple times, smashed in the passenger side front at one point in time... and so forth. I could keep going but you get the idea. Anyways, I was driving it back and forth from Chicago to Milwaukee pretty much every day; the drive is about an hour and a half, about 85 miles I think. By the time I arrived at my destination each time, my back was killing me. No matter what I did with the lumbar or recliner on the seat, I could just not get comfortable. I'm not sure what it was exactly, probably a combination of the wrong seat design + cheap materials. Either way, I feel so bad for whomever has to drive one of those cross country. On the return trip home each day, I was squirming and cracking my back every 2 minutes because it literally was THAT bad. It had to be due to the cheap materials and bad design... they really cheaped out with the Focuses (Focii? lol), but hopefully the new ones are better- which is why I'm anxiously awaiting darktides to tell us about it! Lol. On top of that, for a 4 cylinder, the thing got horrible gas mileage. In my Civic, it took $20 round trip, slightly more if I was driving around either city when I got there, but I usually didn't. The Focus took 30 and some change, but the number increased a lot more if I did city driving on top of it. I had just put plugs in it, as well as an air and fuel filter, so I know it wasn't because of lack of maintenance. I'm curious for darktides to reply and tell us about how the '12 Focus is. I'm particularly interested in his experience so far with the interior and the seats. If I could have gotten comfortable, it wouldn't have been that bad. Also, Dan- what do you consider the Fuckus days? I'm gonna go on a limb and say that until the new body style came out- 2008 I think?
I'm pretty sure Mr Ford didn't launch his quality and style initiative until the 2008 model year or just after as he did so in the beginning of the recession when GM was getting bailed out. I've pretty much heard the same things about that body style from quite a few others, though with a couple outliers that _love_ the crap out of them. Although, if it were to happen today not sure if I'd get the Focus or go with a Fusion. I'm still kind of bummed that the new Hondas' stylings are so-so and their MPG has dropped a lot (price of them getting bigger and heavier I suppose).
I hear ya Nidex, the driving position in the pre-redesign Focus was horrible. I went from Cincinnati to Norfolk Virginia and the center console didn't allow for comfortable leg position at all. And I'm only 5' 10". I can't imagine what it would be like for a tall guy. Cruise control was the only thing that saved the trip.
Sorry for the delay. 1st generation Focus was until 2007, 2008-2011 was gen 2. The 2012 is gen 3. The ride is much better than the 1st gen I had. The interior feels much more modern and Sync is nice. Th seats wrap around the lower back more than they used to and it is comfortable. I haven't driven more than about an hour but I don't see any issues with the seat. The car handles around corners very well, supposedly it can handle .88g's cornering. The traction control is nice, if you corner hard enough to trigger it you can feel it hitting the breaks on one or more wheels to keep you steady. The body is much more rigid than the 2001 and you can feel that when you take a hard corner, I haven't really noticed any roll. The plain Jane tires are Continental but seem to be good. My interior looks like this pic but all black. http://www.nikeride.com/2012-ford-f...t-40-mpg-highway/2012-ford-focus-13-interior/
Cool stuff man. I think the new Focus and Fiesta are some of the best cars on the market right now, and they're priced well.
