2012 FordFocus SEL For Sale

If you like to stutter when hitting the gas, this car is for you. Known transmission issues with this vehicle that Ford knows about yet has no permanent fix for. Bought my 2014 brand new and had to take it in every year and a half to have the clutch replaced. Of course now it's out of warranty, I used my 1 free recall pass and I was advised that there is no permanent fix for this issue but I can drop $2k to fix it just to have it happen again. I've owned this car for 8 yrs and it don't even have 65k miles on it, they couldn't pay me to own another Ford vehicle ever again.

Loved this car when I first got it. Great ride, handling (at least until the factory tires hit snow for the first time), large enough trunk to put almost everything I have ever needed it to do. Liked it so much that I convinced my wife to buy a Ford Escape a year later (also a mistake). Only problem at the beginning was that the transmission seemed off and it hesitated a lot when trying to get started from a red light. Ford denied it was a problem for about 2 years, then did a "recall" for the problem (which essentially was just a new program for the transmission) and VIOLA!!! it was fixed and the car was great. Well, it was great... if you ignore that the Sync system never really worked and really wouldn't play audio from my iPhone or Android over Bluetooth, other than actual phone calls (which would still randomly go into "privacy" mode after you answered the call, which translate to the handset while you were driving after you used the car to answer it)... and it would only pick up music from the USB connection on a random basis that sometimes involved shutting off the car, then opening and closing the doors, then restarting the car with the phone/mp3 player plugged into the jack already playing the music... but, sometimes it only worked if the phone wasn't playing music already... but, sometimes...etc.. etc.. All of that was frustrating but like most things, you just accept it and move on because the car itself was good and fun to drive. But of course, there was also the plastic cover under the car that either never seemed to stay up or the dealer just kept forgetting to put it back on properly... and the time when the check engine light came on and I took it into the dealer about 2000 miles after parts of the warranty expired just for them to say my catalytic converter was having a problem, the warranty covering it had just expired and it would eventually be a $1500 repair if/when it finally went (I decided to drive with the light on)... then at only 115,000 miles the transmission blew out while driving on cruise control on a straight highway at 70mph (meaning it wasn't shifting or doing anything at that point). Y'know, the kind of thing that everyone who does car repairs tells you, in the most maddening way, "shouldn't happen with that little wear on it". This is a $6000 repair on a car that had a trade in value of $2000 - $2500 at that point (to put it in another perspective, the equivalent 2013 Toyota... a Camry... is valued at around $6000 as a trade-in at the same time with the same mileage by KBB). I have driven a Ford since 1997 (when I had a Geo Tracker... which is actually the worst car I ever owned) and have never driven anything that was not sold by an American car company, but this is definitely my last one. Maybe Ford has gotten better again in the last couple of years (looking at recalls and complaints between 2010 & 2016... they definitely had some terrible years), but I won't chance it.

I previously owned a 2005 Ford Focus and loved it. When it was time for an upgrade and the dealership said they had the same car but a newer version, I was elated! However, they took me for a ride on the price (it was my first time buying a car on my own— I didn't know any better) and it's been nothing but issues since. Within 2 weeks of buying the car, it was stuttering every time I would accelerate from a stop. This kept going on for about a year before someone finally told me that the clutch needed replacing. After doing that, I still have issues with the same thing (though not quite as often as before). Prior to that, it had broken down on the interstate multiple times for various other failures. This past weekend, my car stopped accelerating in the middle of the street. After towing it to a nearby repair shop, I find out that the whole transmission needs replacing and it will cost around $4,000. I still owe $6300 on this car. I've spent probably $3,000 in repairs already. It only has about 95,000 miles on it. There have also been 10+ recalls on it OUTSIDE of the transmission/clutch issues. How can it be this bad? I've submitted a claim for the Ford Transmission Class Action Lawsuit. Buyer beware, this is the lemon that I'd always been afraid of.