|
|
|||||||||||
|
Ford Focus Estate y2K model year. Well it's a funny way to spell "Escort"
In the spring of 2000, I took a Focus Estate for a 2300km jaunt across Germany, Belgium and Frane. I learned quite a lot about the car and here are my views. |
|||||||||||
|
The good parts. Well, I'm going to say a lot of bad things about this car so I'll start on a positive note and say first what I liked about it. As a load carrier, it was pretty good. I could fit a lot inside and, even with a heavy load, the performace was acceptable. I could keep up with the traffic in towns and out on the Autobahn and the car was quite at ease cruising with a little more than 110mph on the speedo. The handling was good too and, unlike many estate cars, it was happy on the twisty stuff regardless of the load in the back. The range on a single tank of fuel was just over 600km for mostly fast dual carriageway driving. Personally, I'm not that bothered about ten or even twenty percent differences in fuel consumption. What is much more important is the range between fill ups. On long journeys, this can make a big difference to the time taken. |
|
||||||||||
|
The brakes worked, as you would expect and the car pulled up in a straight line with no problems. The radio was about average in terms of being able to receive English stations as I drove across Germany, Belgium and France. I did rather more than 2300km in a weekend and also spent one night sleeping in the car. I got out after all that feeling a lot less stiff than after say 500km in an Astra so I guess that it is not bad to sit in. |
|||||||||||
|
And now for the bad parts. Nobody makes truely bad cars in Western Europe these days but there were a lot of things wrong with this car. |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||