Prior to buying S197 I was driving the car pictured above, a Ford Focus I cared so little about I've forgotten the model year. For several decades I had been blessed/cursed with a company car for everyday use. When I was downsized I lost the free car. My interim employment required that I find something to drive very quickly. I already had inklings that a Mustang may be in my future but in the dead of a Pennsylvania winter with all of its salt and brine treatments I felt something sacrificial and temporary would be a better idea. Hence, the Focus.
The requirement were mostly a car that would be dependable, economical and have legal road inspection for about a year. If it exploded into a ball of fire at the onset of spring I likely wouldn't care. After a disappointing offer of what turned out to be a horribly rusted BMW E30 I began looking for something 'newer'. I found this Zetec powered, manual transmission Sony Edition Focus for sale for a whopping $1500. Second gear was extremely crunchy and it had over 200,000 miles on it but aside from some paint peeling off the front was in decent shape. I talked the seller down to $1100 and took it home.
The first generation Focus does not have a stellar reputation and I can kind of see why. It is truly a car built to a price. The interior is cheap, the window regulators regularly break (I replaced two), the electrical system for the engine fans can have meltdowns (had to fix mine) and the cooling system is leak-prone (more later). However, the Zetec engine provided spunky power, fuel economy was stellar and overall the car served its purpose as an appliance. I did have to break out the tools several times, however, and my $1100 car quickly cost me a few hundred in the roughly year-long ownership period. The battery went kaput. A rear wheel bearing failed, which is part of the brake drum (cheap) but I was unable to get it apart myself so off to a shop it went. The cheap plastic cooling pipe across the front burst spectacularly (see prior blog entry about cheap plastic thermostat housings on 4.0 Mustangs; come on Ford!!). The radiator fans failed to work due to melted wire connectors which I lopped off and repaired. The aforementioned window regulators which die after generating some cringe-worthy crackling sounds. Oh, and the fuel gauge that decided one dark, cold night to stick on a quarter tank, causing me to run out of gas an hour from home.
Despite all of this, I came to respect the little brown turd. Here was a car that had been pretty much used up (roughly 260,000 miles, if memory serves). It was on the downward slide toward junkyard residency. With all of its foibles many owners would have set it afire and pushed it into a lake. I took several trips to local salvage yards and pieced it back together as inexpensively but effectively as possible. Aside from the wonky battery that gave ample warning in the coldest week of winter, the car always started and went. It did provide transportation, only failing when some ancient piece simply could no longer tolerate the stresses placed upon it. Though I got mad at it a few times I never came to loathe it. To the contrary, it actually earned my respect to some degree. It was as if it knew it were perched on the abyss of obsolescence but fought valiantly not to fall over the edge.
The now-fixed-up little Focus was replaced by the Mustang after about a year. I sold it privately with only a little difficulty (manual transmissions being a heavy deterrent in the marketplace, I've come to discover) for the same $1100 I paid for it. The buyer had some automotive knowledge and seemed sympathetic to the non-existent second gear syncro. I wouldn't be surprised if the little rat was still running somewhere today.
I've often pondered just how long I could get a car to last if I purchased it new and performed my usual diligent maintenance throughout the years. Unless rust takes hold or there is a serious design flaw in the mechanics, I believe most cars can continue to function reliably north of even 300,000 miles. The unfortunate fact is age, style, owner disinterest and dropping resale value conspire to push still-serviceable cars out to pasture. Even crappy little cars get tossed aside for 'new and improved' crappy little cars for often preventable reasons.
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