While I've been waiting for the relocation company to ship me my car, I've had a rental car. A very nice perk, if I do say so myself. However, my friendly neighborhood car rental company gave me a Ford Focus. Let me preface the rest of my post by saying that I have no agenda against Ford. I've owned a Ford Explorer that I dearly loved. However, the 2008 Ford Focus is simply not a well designed vehicle.
So as I was instant messaging with a friend tonight, I made the claim that I could think of at least 5 things about the car that really bothered me. Then I decided to find out if I really could. So, here they are, my five primary complaints about the 2008 Ford Focus:
5. The windshield wiper controls. Again, I'm just not sure what engineering was thinking about on this one. Virtually every car I've driven, foreign or domestic for the last 10 years has had the exact same control system for turning on your wipers. Ford decided to mix it up on the focus. Everything is the opposite of what you expect. Up is down and down is up. To speed up the wipers, you turn a knob on the control stick towards you instead of away.
4. This is nothing new for Ford, but instead of putting your headlights on your turn signal, they still insist on a separate knob clear up on the left side of the dashboard. Again, why are you persisting in being different from almost every other car maker?
3. The rearview mirror is very very stiff. When I try to adjust it, i feel like I might accidentally rip it off the windshield if I'm not careful. I don't want a floppy mirror, but I do want some ease of adjustment.
2. One of my more common complaints about cars...the cup holders. They are positioned in the center console toward the front. However, when I tried to put a large soda from a famous fast food chain in the holder, it was too tall. The cup leaned to the side and dumped several ounces onto the shoddy floor mats.
2a. The cup holders come with rubber liners that you can remove for easy cleaning. Good idea, right? Not in this case. They stick to the cups they hold so you end up picking up your drink and a rubber sleeve. But because the sleeve only fits into the cup holder in precisely one position, its impossible to put your drink back into the cup holder.
1. Special guest complaint by my wife--the turn signal is loud. Very loud. As in if I'm driving home and talking to my wife on the phone she complains about how annoying it is. So loud that when she came to visit me last weekend, we took her rental car (2008 Pontiac Grand Prix) out several times just to avoid it. It makes me imagine the following conversation between two Ford engineers:
Nerdy engineer #1: On my way in this morning I got stuck behind some lame-o who changed lanes and never turned off his blinker.
Nerdy engineer #2: You know, for the new Focus, we should make it so it is really hard for a driver to leave his on.
Nerdy engineer #1: Good idea...I've heard of some car manufacturers creating an alarm where if it is on for very long while the car is in motion, it will alert you.
Nerdy engineer #2: Hmmm...we don't want to worry about patent infringement. Let's come up with a blinker that is really loud all the time, even if you are waiting at a red light.
Nerdy engineer #1: Sounds good. But couldn't that lead to a safety issue if it annoys drivers too much? We don't want to really piss off our own drivers...
Nerdy engineer #2: We have a scheduled break in 2 minutes...let's just put the damn thing in and go get our coffee.
So, what is good about the car? The stereo is pretty decent. I think it's not a horrible looking car--except for the hideous shade of blue they stuck me with. In another color, it might be an okay looking car. And I guess at a MSRP of $14,375, its not a very expensive car. Just be prepared to be annoyed.
Also, I just thought of one more annoyance, also courtesy of my wife. Most cars these days have an alarm to remind you to fasten your seatbelt if you are driving. Ford took it one additional annoying step by beeping if the passenger has decided not to fasten her seatbelt. I didn't know whether to be more annoyed at Ford or at my wife for this one, but it really does grate on you. I'm all for safety, but driver annoyance should not be the method for implementing safe practices in a vehicle.
Drive safely. Also, don't be like Catherine and drive too quickly.
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