Review – 2012 Ford Focus has Tremendous Realized, and Unrealized, Potential

Posted by Christian Wardlaw on October 10th, 2011

By now, you’ve heard all about how terrific the redesigned 2012 Ford Focus is. Critics continually point out how much the quality has improved, how much fun to drive it is, how technologically advanced its features are, and how it represents one more globally designed and engineered Ford product that can take on the best cars from any company, anywhere in the world.

The critics are right.

But no car is perfect, including the 2012 Focus, which needs some serious attention to the attenuation of noise, vibration, and harshness.

Noise, Vibration and…

To be fair, our test car was the Focus Titanium Sedan, and it was equipped with the Titanium Handling Package, which includes 18-inch aluminum wheels, 235/40ZR18 Michelin Pilot Sport 3 summer performance tires, and a sport suspension. That said, our Focus produced lots of road rumble, and when the front suspension passed over expansion joints, road zits, pavement craters, grooved concrete – pretty much any surface that wasn’t utterly smooth – quite a bit of noise and vibration reverberated up through the structure and into the cabin.

Beyond this, many of this Ford’s bits and pieces creak and buzz, either when used or while driving. For example, when you grasp the front door window frame to close the door, it audibly creaks under the slight amount of pressure placed upon it. So do the door panels if you lean or brace a leg on them, and the center armrest. Pop the overhead sunglasses holder open and you’ll find an egregiously cheap design solution.

Then there’s the engine, which looks sophisticated on paper. It’s a 2.0-liter, direct injected four-cylinder with twin independent variable camshaft timing (Ti-VCT), rated to make 160 horsepower and to get as much as 40 mpg on the highway if you believe what the Environmental Protection Agency is telling you. We averaged 24.6 mpg in a car rated to get 27 mpg in the city and 37 mpg on the highway, and that included lots of driving on the latter.

Aside from completely missing fuel economy estimates, when revved, the 2.0-liter engine makes plenty of racket. Granted, it’s a fairly refined racket, and vibration and harshness aren’t the problem so much as the extra noise added to cabin when you’ve dipped into the throttle only to be met with…

…Harshness

If you’ve ever driven an Audi or Volkswagen with a Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG) or S-tronic automated manual transmission, you know that even if you’re a big fan of clutch pedals, DSG/S-tronic is so damn good that you have trouble justifying getting the stick. With Ford’s PowerShift automated manual, the opposite is true. It’s clunky and irritating enough that people who never learned how to row their own gears will want to.

Given the number of years DSG has been in production, and the accolades that have been showered upon it, there’s really no good reason why Ford’s PowerShift transmission behaves like it does. When asked to perform any chore outside of the norm, such as engaging a gear rapidly, kicking down for passing power, or promptly upshifting when high engine rpm is not desirable, PowerShift completely drops the ball.

The driver can take manual control, of course. But Ford’s solution is not a set of paddle shifters, or even a separate shifting gate with up/down operation. Instead, the driver is given a little button on the side of the shifter to click for upshifts and downshifts, like some kind of video game. Ugh.

Here’s an example to illustrate one aggravating characteristic of PowerShift. Twice during our week with this vehicle, we jumped in, fired the engine, shifted into Reverse gear to back down the driveway, and lightly applied acceleration, only to be met with no response. Instinctively, we pushed harder on the accelerator, and then the transmission suddenly engaged and we literally leaped rearward. On one of these occasions, we then shifted into Drive, pushed the gas, got no response, pushed harder, and then squealed the tires when the transmission finally decided to grab a gear. In the driveway. In front of the neighbors. How embarrassing.

It’s like Ford ran out of money, or time, to get PowerShift right. Either that, or they assumed Focus drivers wouldn’t be particularly demanding, because 90-percent of the time PowerShift works just fine. It’s the other 10 percent of the time that it chalks up a big, fat “Fail” on the scoreboard, and because the Focus is otherwise such a dynamic triumph, the transmission’s quirks stand out in stark relief.

We strongly urge Dearborn to buy a few Volkswagen GTIs, tear them down, figure out how DSG works, and redesign this automated manual gearbox.

And Now for Something Completely Positive

If Ford can rid the PowerShift transmission of its aggravating shifting tendencies, and if some of the shortcuts taken with the interior can be rectified, there’s really no reason to buy a different compact car. Or even a different luxury compact car. Generally speaking, the 2012 Ford Focus is stylish, refined, comfortable, and worth the price premium commanded by higher trim levels.

Take the Parking Technology Package, for example. It includes front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, and Active Park Assist that steers the Focus into a parallel parking space while the driver operates the foot pedals. This is technology that’s frequently unavailable on models twice the price, yet the Focus offers it.

It wasn’t just the Parking Technology Package that made the Focus so impressive. Our $26,375 test car had MyFord Touch, which becomes easier to deal with the more frequently we’re exposed to it, as well as leather upholstery, ambient cabin lighting, a kick-ass Sony audio system, and Sync hands-free phone and music streaming connectivity. Except for the amount of road noise coming into the cabin, and the frequently harsh shifts delivered by PowerShift, a loaded Ford Focus is a bargain compared to entry-luxury sedans that are roughly the same size.

Driving the 2012 Focus

We’re not going to continue our rant about PowerShift here. However, while 160 horsepower is certainly class competitive, we frequently wished for a turbocharged version of the direct-injected, 2.0-liter four-cylinder, one good for around 200 horsepower with a nice, thick wad of torque spread across the rev range. Y’know. Like a Volkswagen.

It’s not that the Focus is slow. As long as the transmission behaves, the car is actually rather energetic. The issue is that, except for the powertrain, this Ford exhibits dynamic superiority in every other regard. Even the electric steering feels totally, utterly natural regardless of whether you’re extracting the car from a tight parking space or approaching 100 mph on a wide-open road.

As mentioned, our test car had the Titanium Handling Package. The big 18-inch wheels produced a wider turning radius that took some getting used to, and the low-profile performance tires combined with the sport suspension amplified road irregularities, but we like that kind of thing. Grip, as one would expect, proved prodigious, and while this particular model’s ride quality was a bit on the stiff side, the Focus still provided a decent ride quality. European influence shines brightly with regard to the ride and handling mix.

The brakes, too, are impressive in terms of feel and response. At least they were on our loaded Focus Titanium, which had four-wheel discs that were vented in front. Panic stops weren’t a problem in this car, and when driven hard on a warm day the brakes exhibited zero fade when slicing through local mountains.

What a blast the Focus could be with a turbocharged engine, a good transmission, and some decent seats.

Comfort, Controls and Cargo

When we say “decent seats,” we strictly reference a need for improved lateral bolstering to achieve “great seats” status. Our test car gripped the pavement with such fierce determination that it became difficult for me to remain anchored behind the steering wheel, forcing me to brace both legs on whatever I could and hang on to the steering wheel with white-knuckled grip. A proper sport sedan should have seats that envelope the driver, making it easier to concentrate on carving corners instead of resisting the laws of nature.

For most Americans, the Focus ought to be comfortable enough. The seats are rather flat even if they don’t look like it, and a tilt-and-telescopic steering wheel and a seat height adjuster make it easy to find a proper driving position. Still, longer limbed members of society may wish for greater thigh support, or more rearward seat track travel. And shorter drivers are likely to wish the center armrest would slide forward to provide greater comfort.

The Focus Sedan’s rear seat lacks leg room, but because the bottom cushion sits tall off the floor and provides good thigh support, and because the front seatbacks are soft and plush, it’s actually comfortable back there even if taller people’s knees and shins are flush against the seats. Installing a reverse-facing child seat, however, requires that the front seat be moved up close enough to the dashboard to make long-distance travel a dicey proposition. And if you’re toting a toddler, be prepared for lots of kicking and footprints on the seatbacks.

The control layout is fairly conventional in terms of placement, and stylized in terms of execution. There are some deviations from the norm with regard to control size, shape, and operation, but nothing that doesn’t become second nature as the miles pile on. Even MyFord Touch, an in-dash Bluetooth, navigation, entertainment, and climate system that is frequently slow to respond and often requires too-precise touch-screen inputs, gets easier to use over time as you acclimate to its shortcomings and quirks.

What’s lacking here, however, is storage space. While we’re all for emergency brakes operated by hand rather than feet, it seems that the 2012 Focus would be better served by an electronic parking brake, thus freeing up a bunch of space next to the shifter for holding stuff.

Something else you should know if ordering the Titanium Handling Package is that trunk space is compromised. As part of this package, the standard temporary spare tire is ditched in favor of a full-size spare covered by a raised trunk floor panel. The trunk is still deep when measured from the seatback to the trunk lid, but height is restricted.

The Vehix View

If it sounds like we dislike the Focus, that’s simply not the case. On the contrary, we like it so much that the few flaws deserving of criticism are extra aggravating. This is a compact car that doesn’t look, feel, or drive like one – or doesn’t need to, anyway – which is why some of the obvious flaws are so frustrating. Stylish inside and out, available with numerous features uncommon to the class, and genuinely fun to drive except for the transmission, the Focus has tremendous realized, and unrealized, potential.

Related posts:

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2. Meet Doug: The 2012 Ford Focus Spokespuppet
3. Ford Partners With AT&T To Connect Focus Electric
4. Ford Focus Electric Home Charging Station Is Fast, Affordable
5. Michigan Assembly Plant Starts 2012 Focus Production
6. Review – 2011 Ford Fiesta Likes to Party, But Arrives Fashionably Late Every Time
7. Electric Goodness from Ford in the Electric Focus
8. Ford Focus Electric Wins 2011 Green Car Vision Award

Tags: 2012 Focus, 2012 Focus Review, 2012 Ford, 2012 Ford Focus, 2012 Ford Focus Review, Compact, Ford, sedan