This car handles better than most competitors, fun to drive on short trips.

Seats and driving position. If you are tall, be careful. Take it for a long test drive and see where your knees and left foot will rest on long journeys.

Reading through previous reviews I was surprised to see nobody mentioning the seats and driving position. I am a tall man and now have a back support, a cushion either side of each leg and I have constructed a foot rest to try and alleviate the pain in my legs, hips and back. You dont notice it for a month or so depending on how much driving you are doing but when it gets uncomfortable it's very hard to rectify. Thank God for yoga.

Similar Products Used:

Many cars from a VW Polo to a BMW 318ci. Never drove a car so uncomfortable

mpg, maintenence is cheap. solid car for break down

every one i have seen on the road has e brake line hangen, paint jobs on these cars was hatroshis , like every ford horible for comfort and interiors like to fall apart . change your wipers when u buy one . steering this car is like driving a damn tractor its all over the road.

well to start out this is our main vehicle . we drive on average 3 hours a day highway driving and another hour in town a day . we got suckered into the extended warenty . for us it waz a waist cause the service they want us to put into the car was insane . 3000 dollars in oil changes and tune ups in the first three months . so now we are just doing the regular oil changes and tune ups through regular shops . but a solid car . winter driving has been exceptional in snow but ice horrible but what does one expect with sutch a light car . highway miles are good about 40 mpg. and a high 30 for city . if this car is well maintained u should be pleased with it . in the winter expect about 100k to every 10 L . thats with letting it warm up for 5 min . also i noticed with ours the egine doesnt warm up fast . but i would deffinetly worth every cent we paid for it .

Similar Products Used:

chevete, mustang , sunbird , firebird , sunfire , neon

Right out of the box, the steering, suspension, handling, engine eagerness...all fantastic. The factory stereo sounded pretty good comapared to others, the HVAC systems on the car can't be beat, the electrical system is strong and has lasted a long time. Much nicer designed interior than Corolla or Civic of the same age, with higher grade interior materials, and more creature comforts for the money. Cheaper to buy than the imports, and comes with more standard features. Edgy looks when they first came out (nobody else made a car that looked like this when they first came out). Overall cost of parts is reasonable, and they seem to last, even if driven hard.

MTX 75 Transmission in 00-03 Models has an annoying gear "windage/rollover" noise that can't be corrected on most cars. Aftermarket lightbulbs in the stock headlamp assemblies burn out fast (pair of silverstars per month in winter...that's $60 cdn per month folks...). Seat tipping handles on 3-dr models break off easily (white metal construction), the 00-02 models have flat black perforated exterior trim peices that slowly turn grey, and need to be replaced or painted to colourmatch the car (unless you don't care about such things). Poor resale value, and bad word of mouth rep for reliabilty for a lot of them...

I bought my car off of a Chrysler dealership back in the fall of 2003 (it had been traded in with another vehicle for a pacifica). It was a good, solid, clean car when I bought it, and it's still going strong today. It's currently got over 130,000km's on it, and it's had little-no repairs needed since I've owned it.

Replaced the battery at around 120,000 km's (typical for a battery 5 years old or older), the front rotors twice, the front pads once, have the A/C system repaired at 80,000km's (cracked refridgerant return line in winter leaked the gas out), and replaced the valve cover gasket once at around 100,000km's (this was after switching to full synthetic engine oil) and that's about it.

As many people know, the aftermarket for the ZX3 and Foci in general is HUGE. I've added headlights and front grilles from Germany to it (ST170 headlight conversion and Focus RS grilles), Focus RS sideskirts, WRC Spoiler, SVT side mouldings, SVT Euro rims with Fuzion ZRi tires, MBRP exhaust, AEM CAI, Focus Central TB, FRPP 9mm ignition wires, Sean Hyland Motorsport full suspension kit, A JVC Touchscreen CD player with Sirius Sat Radio support, PowerAcoustik Stereo system, 3M window tint etc etc. All of which contribute to my driving the car harder than most people would, and more often.

This car has been rock solid, with only the small repairs and regular maintenance involved. It is one of the few that's never had ANY recalls on it, and only had 1 TSB for the stock springs, which aren't on the car anymore.

I can't understand why soooo many people have bad luck with these cars, and so many problems. I also can't understand why the resale value is so crummy on a car so great, when it was/is one of the best selling cars of all time.

Similar Products Used:

Mazda 323, Saab 900

Handaling is one of the car best areas, it is sharp and responsive, great fun to throw into the corners. The body design is pretty good they arent to many other cars on the road with the simular shape.

The weakness that are is that the gearbox is very poor, notchy and sometimes hard to change gear when cold. The seats are tottaly useless I have had the car for sometime and have never be able to get comfy with them. I have have tried very possible way with extra form with out the foam all seat positions, they are just useless.

Ford Focus very good to drive, but has poor drivers seat and notchy gearbox.

Handling, heat, styling, cargo space, kicking factory stereo.

paint, build quality, buzzy interior noises,

I bought this car from a dealership I formerly worked for when my 89 Reliant died. It was 2 years old with 55000km(35000mi) and a local one owner trade. i found it handle and drive like more expensive German sport cars and the storage, styling, and interior were all to my satisfaction. Once it hit 70000km the problems started. minor as they were, they were annoying. First the turn signals went. After turning either way and straightening the wheel, you had to shut them off yourself as they would not cancel. Paint quality was not so great. It started flaking off around wheel wells and door bottoms and then while washing it big chunks came off exposing bare metal. The horn worked intermittently as the connection on the horn was always coming loose and the check engine light never went off for more than three days in a row during the last 5 months of owning it. The car did have the most amazing heat and always started in our cold Canadian winters. After 10 months I traded it on a new 05 Hyundai Elantra and love it even though the trade value of the Focus left me with 3000.00 still owing on the loan. Ive spoken too people who have had better luck than me so maybe it was a "Built on Friday" car but when you shop around don't forget to check out the Japanese and Korean products.

Similar Products Used:

Hyundai Elantra

Handling, comfort, reliability, utility, fuel economy.

noise, fuel economy could be better still.

EXCELLENT CAR PERIOD! Mine is a full-optioned vehicle with low profile Pirelli tires and a five-speed for fun.
It easily outhandles the Japanese competition from 2003. The car magazines and I confirm that. I've had 30K miles with no problems whatsoever. I drive agressively at times and poke along at others. The tires have worn evenly. If I have any complaint it's road noise. Part of that is the low profile tires. However, Ford should have installed a bit more sound proofing than they did. My only regret is that I didn't order leather seats to make it feel like the European design that it is.

Similar Products Used:

Honda Civic

Lots of features for the money: keyless entry, low profile tires, leather steering wheel, cruise, tach, fog lights, nothing in its price class comes with all of this. Very good gas mileage.

Where to start? Doors are horrible to open (many passengers think the door is locked when they try to open it from the outside), worst car on Earth in the snow, horrendous acceleration with a/c running, undersized brakes, many recalls, and worst of all, the camber on the wheels is set so that your rear tires are towed out - I had to have a kit installed aftermarket because I was chewing up the inside of my tires every 30k miles. This is a must on this car because of a design defect.

You get what you pay for. I traded in a loaded Eddie Bauer 2000 Expedition for a brand new 2003 ZTS (divorce will do that). With X Plan pricing (I work for Delta) I paid 12k even though sticker was 16k. Cosmetically, you get a lot for your buck. However, it comes with many irritating issues (see below).

Similar Products Used:

None. Of course, this piece of @#$% doesn't compare with my Expedition...nor should it.

economical, comfortable, handles nicely

can't think of any

I love my car!! What more can I say?? It gets great gas mileage and is fun. She has a lot of pick up and go, and is easy to handle.

Similar Products Used:

Nissan Sentra / Mitsubishi Galant / Chevy Cobalt // all of which I HATED!!!!!!!

looks, trunk room and ride.

have not found one yet but I guess I will. I did not like all the dishonest statements/adds by multiple dealers that I had to put up with was a bit of a pain but I quess that goes with the car buying experience.

Car drives nice and looks good. I got a good deal over a little $17K MSRP and bought it for under $12,500. Test drove a Yaris and did not like it. A corolla,civic, mazda 3 with the options on my ZX3 priced their cars around $5 to $6 k more and the dealers would not take anything off the civic MSRP and the corolla and mazda were being discounted very little.

The boot is a great size, overall performance is good.

We believe it eats fuel.

We had been very pleased with the car until we had a scary incident on a hill, basically we were driving up a hill and had to stop for a second behind a car on setting back off the clutch started to burn, the smoke was horendous we were actually scared the car would set on fire! We booked the car into a local ford garage who checked the car and told us it was fine and that the Focus has a small clutch and could burn out quite easily which is not what you expect just setting off on a hill, they actually said it could go any moment has was not covered by our warranty due to it being wear and tear, this is not what you want to hear being a brand new car only 4 months old.