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also if bad alignment were the problem, your tires would show conspicuously suspicious wear patterns.
The rear tires DO have very bad irregular wear. So much so that when rotated to the front, they sound like tractor tires The tread depth is still very good but the noise they create is horrible. I replaced the orignial Pirelli tires (because of the same noise issue) with BF Goodrich (recommended to me) of the exact same size that came on the car.
I have taken the car to two different dealerships for alignment. The car will simply not stay aligned. I drive the same roads I have driven for the past 12 years (all paved). My last vehicle was an Explorer that would get 65K + to a set of tires and was rarely out of alignment for the 185,000k miles I drove it.
Does anyone else have to get their Focus 4-wheel aligned every 3-6 months??
I guess I was hoping there was a recall on it that would fix the problem.
The gas savings seems to be going towards tires & alignment instead of my pocketbook. I am looking at the explorers again and thinking of trading up.
Brought it to the dealership and they fixed the alignment and supposedly test drove it and said it was fine. They said the car considered that jump an "accident" and something was bent but it was nothing that needed to be fixed or would cause problems other than if I get into an accident, the air bag won't deploy. So I waited and saved $1500 that I don't have.
- Alignment still seems slightly off.
- Newest issue I am noticing on the highway, I'll be doing like 50 and won't really push on the gas to stay there or because I want to slow down. When I do this, the car now jumps a few times until I push on the gas or brake.
- Also seems like I have to push harder on the gas when I want to go faster.
- Sometimes the car seems ..shaky. Either it's stopped or I've gotten used to it; I'm not sure.
Something just seems..off. I don't know. Before it always had that new car feel to it and since that incident it doesn't. Any ideas?
I don't think 65K on tires is the norm anyway, so you were very lucky on the Explorer. If you are in the San Francisco area I can recommend an alignment shop that knows their business and would be able to get to the bottom of this very annoying problem.
it would be helpful to see a photo of the tire wear patterns. Some types of wear are not actually alignment issues, such as "cupping" (suspension) or center-wear only or two-sided edgewear (inflation issues).
this may help
http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53702
Since my last post, I have taken my Focus to another tire shop in town and purchased 4 new tires.... they are soooo quiet compared to the old set!!
They said that the "cupping" issue is probably due to the suspension and that another customer with a Mazda Protege (same suspension as my SES Focus) had the same problem. They recommended a 'harder tire' instead of the high performance tires which are 'softer'.
Every 5k miles, I will get them rotated (it's free! Yay!) and will get the alignment checked at the same time. Hopefully, these will wear out evenly...
If I didn't have to get out of there fast, I would've just asked for a wheel replacement. So I'll be doing that next.
Yep. I've had two places tell me the rear suspension is faulty. I wish Ford Motor Co would offer to replace it.
The best of luck with yours!
Doni Marie~
I had a Pro5 and the Mazda3 is a great alternative to Focus.
Mark.
http://www.ford.co.nz/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1132731178955&pagename=Page&c=DF- - YPage
best,
Frank
thanks
Bottom line, unless you are very mechanically adept, I'd leave it to a shop--glad I did.
If I take the Focus to a mechanic to have the 100K maintenance done, what is the typical expense for that? At 120K when the timing belt is due to be replace, is it still the rule of thumb to also replace the water pump?
At this point, should I go ahead and have the timing belt and water pump replaced instead of waiting to hit 120K?
The mechanic said there is nothing else to a tuneup besides new plugs as the computer will do the rest.
As for the timing belt and water pump, I had them replaced at 127k miles and thought I had pushed as far as I dared. You don't want the timing belt to fail on the road and make an expensive job way more expensive. I paid about $650 for that at non-Ford shop. I don't know if there are any warning signs that the timing belt is weakening/slipping/stretching/???, but maybe some others here know.
I think it's still standard to replace the water pump after spending the $r&$r to get at the timing belt and the water pump is right there.
Oh, yeah. Always replace the water pump whenever changing the timing belt, Always. If you don't, the old one will leak and will cost you another 100 or so to fix it. It is just their nature to do these things. Only other major thing I have done with my Focus is replace the struts, because I live on a washboard dirt road that beats cars to death. Still is a great little car. Now tomorrow when I start to flush the system, the motor will fall out. Oh well
I will be driving along on the highway doing about 65mph and all of a sudden the transmission will start growling and it will downshift and hold around 2500 to 3000 rpm's even when I try to speed up it will not go any faster,
the service department gave me a tranny flush & a new filter ,
that didn't work.
it does not happen all the time, it comes & goes.
has it ever happened to you?
is there a fix :sick:
thanks for your help
All of a sudden the car has been jumping. It's random, it's happened driving 80 on the highway or 30 on the street. Sometimes it's kind of jumped or hesitated when I accelerated BUT it's also done it when I've taken my foot off the gas and was just letting the car roll.
Yesterday, I went to brake at a red light and the car wasn't stopping as fast as it should've. The only *excuse* that would make any sense was that it was raining and I could've been in a deep puddle and it slid. As if that wasn't bad enough, the car stalled. I stepped on the gas and it did nothing so I had to shut it off (again, still sticking out in the middle of an intersection and pissing a bunch of people behind me off) and wait like 5 minutes before I was able to go again. I can't blame the rain because it wasn't raining that hard and I've driven in much worse rain and much bigger puddles than that.
I guess it's also kind of hesitated when I've pushed the gas because there were times on the highway I had to push it harder than I normally had to push it and kind of pump it. That's also only happened a couple times so I didn't think much of it.
"We took it for a ride and it was perfectly fine"
Ummm yeah because like I said.. it doesn't happen every time I drive.
Another wasted $90.
thanks,
Frank
I had it "serviced" today. They found nothing wrong.
Then again, you may have put in some crap fuel, which can cause similar issues. Ethanol (even at 10%) is crap, as it robs power and gas mileage. Don't get me going on that JUNK that goes in our fuel...though, it seems to be popular with unknowing fools these days spouting their foolish garbage about helping the farmer at the cost of feed prices...sorry ;-)
Good luck, and keep us posted!
Thx
Thanks,
Angela
Bring back bench seats in cars where you can move around a bit while driving.
regards,
Frank
Underneath the car, there is a bracket and bushing assembly which supports the parking brake cable near the rear suspension. As the passenger's side rear wheel moves up and down with the bumps in the road, this bracket assembly apparently can be the source of a squeaking noise as the parking brake cable moves with the suspension. This is my dealer's explanation anyhow. He fixed it in 10 minutes and didn't even charge me for it.
The other place is inside the car and it involves the rear seat. The seat backs are hinged in three places: extreme passenger's side, extreme driver's side, and in the middle where the seat back is split. Each hinge base is secured to the floorpan with torx-head screws. The seat back parts of the hinge are essentially metal dowels that are threaded through the base assemblies. The hinges themselves are quite robust but the metal-to-metal between the hinge dowels and the hinge bases can cause squeaking as the car goes over bumps. The seat hinge is pretty free-moving, so there is just enough side-to-side play in the seat hinges to cause squeaking.
A surefire way to test is to have someone ride in the back seat. That is something I had never done, since this car is only driven by me, and only occasionally do I have my wife with me, who of course rides in the front passenger seat. But something told me to try that and VOILA!! The infernal squeaking went silent. I had my wife return to the front and like magic, the squeaking returned.
I got some spray silicone-based dry lubricant and sprayed it liberally into all three hinge assemblies and my car is now squeak-free!
As for the body flexing, the Ford Focus platform is actually quite commendably stiff. The Focus was designed as not only a bread-and-butter compact car for the hoi polloi, it was designed as the platform for Ford Racing's European rally racing efforts, and as such it has been very successful. The Focus, despite its humble pretensions, is structurally a quite solid piece of work.
My daughter needs her air conditioning unit recharged and one place has the most reasonable price but charges a flat 39.95 and 10.00 per lb. Other places are 65.00 to 145.00.
I have a 2005 Focus Sedan SE.
41,000 miles on it.
- Needs 4 new tires.
- One needs a rim/wheel from hitting a pothole bad enough.
- The air filter is disgusting and needs replacing. Everytime I put my AC or defrosters on, I get black/brown **** on my windshield.
- 60 degree weather and some nights I have had to put the HEATER on to get the windows defrosted. It does not work with cold air.
- Steering wheel doesn't ..snap back..as fast as it used to. It's like the power steering is gone or something. This bugs me. I used to be able to turn the wheel all the way and when I let go it would snap straight back and now it snaps back crooked. I asked the dealer this and of course they looked at me like I was an idiot. I did talk to some other Ford owners and they knew what I meant and said their cars don't do it anymore either.
- Windshield wipers are messed up. I can turn them on but I cannot shut them off. I have to shut them off manually by keep flicking the switch with my fingers and stopping it at the RIGHT spot. Takes concentration to do it right, hopefully I don't; get into an accident someday because I'm playing with the wiper stick.
- Highway Driving - Sometimes I have to floor it to get it to speed up and switch gears even though this is an autoamtic transmission.
- I don't think my brakes are as good as they were when I first got it. They seem a bit weaker...even though yesterday I slammed the brakes on to avoid a deer and they worked and no deer got hit.
- CD Player is scratching and skipping my CDS for some reason.
- My lights suck. They do not need replacing but they are just NOT bright enough for me. I drive a lot at night, through black holes (People from CT know what I am talking about!) and I strain my eyes trying to see better when I just have crappy lights. The dealership told me I would have to go to a modshop or something to get brighter lights and then told me that brighter lights stress the engine or something out and I'll have more problems down the line.
- It makes a weird rattling noise while running. Someone said it sounds like my belt snapped but well it's been doing it for months and the dealer said it wasn't anything to really worry about.
All minor, irritating things... People are like "You only have $3,000" left but well am I going to end up paying the car off with $3000 and then fixing about $3,000 worth of stupid things on it? :confuse:
GRB