I love my pretty Focus!

I bought my Focus sedan in November 2001. So I've had it for a month or two now. I'm completely satisfied - I love this great little car!

Exterior Appearance

I love how the Focus is different than all the other look-alike cars you see on the roads lately. The back is so cute! I do admit that I would have designed the look of the headlights a bit differently (from the front they make the car look slightly cross-eyed, and they're a little pointy for my tastes), but overall I like it. And I got mine in French Blue, which is a wonderful color, and new for the Focus - 2002 is the first year it's been available. When I was looking at 2001's, I thought about the Light Sapphire Blue, but it really is a little too "wimpy" of a blue. The French Blue is a deep blue, I guess what you might call "royal blue". I personally think the Focus looks best in bright colors (and silver). The red Foci are great. I think the black, gold, and white are a little too boring for this spunky car.

Interior

The Focus interior is one of the nicest I've seen! A lot of other cars have cheap, utilitarian-looking interiors - hard black plastic, very square. Not the Focus. Everything is rounded and sleek. The controls are large and easy to adjust without taking your eyes from the road. It's got all the goodies - power windows, power locks, remote entry, CD player (more about that later), theater lighting. And there are a couple nice little storage spaces in the dash - one is open, near the display panel (I like to put quarters in there), and one is where the ashtray thing would be in the smoker's package (haven't found a use for that one yet - could also use it for change). The armrest also contains storage, though unfortunately not large enough for CDs.

Oh, and did I mention space? There's plenty of that, at least in the front seat. I'm 6'2", and so I need a car with plenty of headroom and legroom. There's plenty to spare in the Focus. And with the tilt/telescoping wheel, I don't have to worry about the wheel hitting my knees or being too far away. The back seat does have significantly less legroom, though, at least when the front seats are back all the way. But there's still enough headroom (unlike in my friend's more expensive 2001 Camry, where I have to scoot forward in the seat to avoid having my head planted in the ceiling).

Ride

I can't say all that much about the ride, since I don't really have much to compare it to (just three cars my parents have had at various times: Caprice Classic, Escort, Windstar). All the reviews I say really praise the Focus's handling, and it does seem nice to me. No play in the wheel, like my parents' minivan (it's weird to have the car decide to shift to the right or left for no reason at all). The only thing I'd like is a little bit more power when accelerating, but maybe it's unfair to compare against the Caprice and minivan.

Stereo

I listen to mostly classical music, and if you know anything about classical music, you know that it has a lot of dynamic variation! With some car stereos it can be impossible to find a volume where you can hear all the quiet parts without having your ears blasted when it gets loud. I don't really seem to have that problem with the Focus's CD player, thankfully. And there's a neat feature that adjusts the volume to compensate for engine noise, so you don't have to fiddle with the volume when you get on or off the highway.

Price

One of the best things about the Focus is, of course, the low price. (Well, at least relatively speaking - $16K is a lot of money!) Luckily, I got in on the 0% financing - what a deal!

Overall, my experience so far has been great. No word yet on gas mileage (I haven't really driven enough yet to tell) or reliability (seems fine so far, and no recalls). Now, if only I could keep the birds away from the car!