2008 Ford Focus Review

Specifications

With a rapid spike in interest for small and compact cars, there was undoubtedly some long, hard deliberation at the Ford table regarding what to with its only compact North American model, the Focus. Ford, though internationally in tune with the small car scene, hasn’t been having the easiest of times with its domestic product range. Certainly it’s on the ball with crossovers, SUVs and trucks, but it has neglected the bottom end of the market. With no change in its stance against bringing the European Focus here due to prohibitive costs, it was decided that the first generation platform, which has been in service for just about a decade now, would carry on for the third-generation 2008 North American Focus.

What once started out as a world car has now been transformed into a vehicle that’s been specialized for the North American market place and shares little to nothing in common with the Focus sold in Europe. It’s been completely reworked to the tastes of North American buyers, which is evident in the sort of changes made. For instance, Ford has effectively slashed the number of body styles available from four to two, removing the three and five-door hatchbacks, plus the wagon, in favor of a simplified sedan and notchback coupe lineup. Remarkably, this is the first time in nearly twenty years that Ford hasn’t had a compact station wagon in its North American lineup; since the days of the Pinto (arguably the first of the compact/subcompact Fords). It also is worth noting that hatchbacks are gaining market share, another body style that Ford has pulled.

Visually, the ‘08 Focus is a brand new car, not just a mid-life update akin to the Taurus. Its frame has been altered such that its profile no longer suggests the bulbous shape of the first hatchback-rooted model, while the ratios of metal and glass have been shifted giving the tall and skinny look of the original more depth and a sturdier stance, especially athletic looking
in two-door guise. The new coupe brings the Focus offering more in line with what Chevrolet and Honda are doing with their Cobalt and Civic models, respectively. This all has to do with the fact that the new Focus was designed to be a notchback from the start with two or four doors. This better allowed Ford to integrate the trunk properly for a cleaner look.

The detailing of the body polarizes people; you either really like it or you don’t. I think it features a nice balance between boxiness and curves, and a nice proportionality due to the shortened overhangs. I quite like the fact that it’s lower than the usual too-tall, top-heavy profile of many new compact cars. I also like the character lines that run parallel to the vehicle’s beltline. Make what you will of the fake fender vents. Even though the third bar on the grille just wouldn’t fit (according to Ford’s head of design, Peter Horbury) and the headlamps ooze into the fenders and up the hood, this is very much recognizable as a “Red, White and Bold” Ford product. The tail is quite simple, and the trunk lid like the sides is chiseled, adorned by the italicized Focus badge.

Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with the existing Mk.1 Focus architecture; back in the late ’90s, Ford poured in tremendous amounts of money to create a decent frame and an advanced Control Blade multi-link rear suspension setup and it paid off. The ‘07 Focus is still a great driving car by today’s standards, which might explain why Ford didn’t feel the need to go reinventing the wheel again. This reasoning was no doubt supported by the car’s newfound reliability; after the outgoing model set records for recalls it became one of the most dependable in its segment. Moving to the new design, some of the ingredients have changed, such as the conversion to electrical power steering. Ford has also removed 40 pounds of weight on average from equivalently equipped vehicles, despite adding on an average of 64 pounds of additional equipment. And did I mention that the new Focus Sedan is 12-percent more rigid than the old one?


Though much is the same, the new Focus has a different character than the old one, a more sober, mature character. The steering maintains the effortless, light feeling of the old car, but it’s less hyperactive. While still precise it feels slightly dulled when going straight ahead, something I’d chalk up to the setup of the electrical power steering to require less inputs when driven at high speeds on the highway and fewer kickbacks from the wheel. The conversion to an electric rack also leaves the wheel mostly devoid of feedback, an area which the old Focus was very strong. The Focus’ handling has also been tweaked fairly substantially to increase its stability. The new model now reacts neutrally to input, safely understeering its way out of problem situations, which is in sharp contrast to the current car’s desire to oversteer upon throttle lift-off or when trail braking. Our Sport Package equipped Coupe tester featured a rear stabilizer bar for a slightly flatter ride, but there’s still a fair deal of body roll. Still, the new Focus is fun to punt around on back roads, since you can tell it’s trying to make an effort to engage you in the heat of the moment with its slightly more burbly exhaust note and the audible intake sucking air in, but its trade off makes itself best known when running around town and in traffic.

An interesting fact: people now spend roughly a week of their lives on average in traffic every year. Not that the Focus has taken this into account in particular, but it’s one of the better compact cars to spend a rush hour in. The biggest single improvement to the car is quelling its noise levels. Ford more than lived up to its promise when it claimed that the new Focus would be the quietest in the compact class; indeed they’ve done a stand up job. Sound insulation has been beefed up in quantity and quality, with the glass thicker and some rather clever tricks incorporated such as a carpeted trunk lid and felt-lined rear wheel wells to keep noise from seeping in through otherwise troublesome areas when on the move. The revised body underwent over 1,000 hours of re-engineering for aerodynamic purposes to ensure its quietness. Ford says that the car is now about 11 to 12 percent quieter than before, but because the difference in sones and decibels means little to most, in real world terms this means that people in the front and the back of the car can speak to each other without straining to hear, and the Sync system (more on this shortly) can pick up on your voice without you needing to raise it.

The cabin is also much nicer too, with its T-shaped dashboard appliqué, “poke through” console controls and ice blue lighting. The driving position isn’t as adjustable as before, due to the deletion of the telescoping steering column, though I am told this was done to increase the vehicle’s rigidity. The cabin plastics are what you’d expect out of a sub-$14,000 car, but they’ve got a fairly nice grain and all of the pieces fit well together on our preproduction test cars. A particularly large amount of research went into designing and developing the seats too; they’re not quite Volvo good, but you’ll be hard pressed to find more comfortable buckets in an affordable compact car. Trimmed in optional leather, and stitched with contrasting thread, they feel soft to the touch and are nicely supportive for hours of driving. The car also receives a conventional ratchet-style height adjuster, standard on all Focus models.

As for the engine, it’s the same entry-level powerplant as with the previous Focus, but it’s been tuned and tweaked slightly to make 140 horsepower and 130 horsepower in super-clean PZEV form. It’s not the quickest in class, but it provides the Focus with acceptable levels of acceleration competitive with the class average. It could do with more power though, something that I could see Ford adding down the road seeing as all performance derivatives have been dropped (SVT RIP - Ed.).

And what about Sync, the new all-in-one multimedia solution that Ford is hyping? The system is easy and intuitive to use for control over your music or your cell phone via Bluetooth. No matter what sort of MP3 player you’ve got, be it an iPod, a Zune, or a USB stick packed with MP3s, Sync will pick it up and play it through a port in the lower dash. It can even pick up tunes on your cell phone via Bluetooth connectivity, and if you’ve got one of those MP3 phones with special ring tones it’ll play them for incoming calls. And speaking of which, once the system is set up Sync can automatically switch from headset to in-car handsfree without requiring you to hang up. Finally, the system uses speech technology that can read text messages. Because the Sync’s platform is based on Windows CE technology, it can be easily updated through its USB port to work with future music formats or devices (Blackberry integration / GPS navigation integration, anyone?).

My qualms for the Focus are quite minor, all of which could be addressed without too much difficulty. The trunk, while bigger than before, and with an aperture that’s wider thanks to a new gas strut hinge design, is fine and dandy, but you have to jam your fingers under the tiniest indent I’ve ever seen to open it. Furthermore, your fingers might not fit if you’re wearing gloves, and the space is so small that it could easily be compacted with snow or ice. A simple solution would be to charge the gas struts so that it opens a few dozen inches when the keyfob button is pressed, like it does on a Honda Civic. Secondly, there’s no handle on the inside of the trunk, which means in the winter time you have to reach over the grimy lid to shut it. There are no rear headrests with this car either (there were previously), and on the Coupe, the driver’s side seat mechanism doesn’t slide forward when it tilts, making accessing the rear seat difficult. The coupe also doesn’t have a spare tire; it uses an inflatable tire sealant system instead.

Out of the big three’s offerings, the Focus strikes me as easily being the best, and it stands out well against the rest of the compact segment. Pricing starts at $13,999 for the entry level S model, for which you get standard air conditioning, aux-in jack, tire pressure monitoring and six airbags. ABS and traction control are an affordable option group for S and SE models, the latter of which is differentiated by chromed door mirrors that are power-operated and heated as standard. Power windows also become standard with the SE, and heated cloth seats, and Sync are now optional. The $17,999 SES gets ABS as standard, the Sync system standard, and has heated leather seats available plus color-select ambient lighting as an option, amongst other things, like a power moonroof and upgraded Audiophile sound system.

And what about the future of the Focus? Last week, Ford unveiled the facelifted version of the new European Focus, complete with advanced diesel engines and Ford’s first application of a dual-clutch gearbox. Will we be missing out on this sort of advanced car forever? Not really, as plans have been made to ensure that the company’s future domestic C-segment vehicle will be internationally developed, and although no timeframe has been cemented, look for it, and a new subcompact car to emerge just after the end of the decade. For now, the Focus is a more realistic choice, and one that’s better suited to please the masses, young or old.