Gadgetory

goodbye to the focus hello to the focus this focus the one the rest of the world has liked for a long time let's drive the 2012 Ford Focus titanium 5 door and check the tech hot on the heels of the new Ford Fiesta which also had some imagery writing to do this new focus moves forward solidly in the category of cool small car maker from just about every angle our five-door or hatchback focus looks tight I'm a little less complimentary about the doughty er sedan now the first thing I think most people are going to notice about a focus especially this titanium high trim is a really nice cabin this is not usually what you get in a low $20,000 to even mid-teens thousand dollar car I've got two LCDs a little one there and a big one here let's talk about them this one on the left is going to give you vehicle information fairly simple on a focus when you're under navigation that gets subdivided two-thirds one-third and the right-hand third also gives you navigation prompts now the big guy here again we've got a fully loaded focus so we have the LCD with MyFord Touch the bad news my Ford touch hasn't improved I don't think any since we last first saw it and didn't like it it's too complicated there are too many little fiddly regions to touch and it's too slow to react upper-left is where you find communications I've got my phone paired for calls upper right the green region is navigation lower left is entertainment am/fm as well as HD Radio fall over Sirius is your satellite single slot for CD USB F down here in the console you've also got the SD card and your a/v inputs down here two USB slots here one of these can be your media player the other one could be a USB Wi-Fi dongle to get this guy online you do have voice command over here of course navigation navigation street address street address say destination street address death destination street address in california san street address including the city 3 0 0 0 Woodside Road Woodside when ready press the voice button and then say set is destination set is destination setting destination start route sorry there's no route active yeah there is it's right here on the screen I gotta hit that button right there so I want you to see a couple things there first of all I had to get very specific I had to say destination street address when there was a choice on the screen that just said street address secondly there's way too many times when I've got to say set destination then start navigation just get going and do it now we have 2 levels of other information as if this isn't enough so far sync services and serious travel link sync services are connected through your phone you get all those sorts of stuff here are what traffic report read to you you can hear personalized news updates and such then you've got serious travel link which is coming down from the bird and has a lot of similar information now one choice on gearbox for a Focus titanium anyways a 6-speed automatic it's not an automatic it's a dual clutch automated manual they call it a power shift in Ford terminology you have a drive and a sport location on the gate no slapstick and no paddles on the wheel you have a rocker on the side of the handle instead for shift okay let's check this automatic parking stuff enabled the button right there and I'm just gonna mosey along here looking for parking spots on the right this vehicle does not look for parking on the left and as I creep along it'll find one okay it says pull forward a little bit and now it says stop I stick in Reverse hands off the wheel and look at this no hands that's pretty slick I'm parking no wrong it's parking I'm watching the rear cam to make sure I lock his scooter over when I put it in Drive look at this it turns the wheel to do the nip and tuck for me and when I'm done I put her in park that's pretty slick okay now feeding power into that gearbox is this guy a one choice only two litre inline-four sitting sidesaddle up here it's got direct injection no turbos but direct injection has pretty advanced technology 160 horse 146 foot-pounds of torque you know no one's gonna write home about that zero to sixty and eight point seven seconds respectable 28 38 mpg those are nice numbers and if you get one of these foes I in the sfe configuration that highway member goes all the way up to 40 now the first thing you noticed in the focus is the handling is really nice it's taught without being harsh it's light and nimble without feeling like a flyweight they're done a really good job dialing in this car getting rid of all the noise vibration and harshness the so called NVH without it feeling like a snare drum which is way too often the way automakers go with small cars now the other thing you notice right away is the engine is adequate but not delightful it's not a slug but it's also just kind of not gutsy enough what saves you in many cases is this transmission put this guy in sport mode and it's a damn mind reader it shifts exactly the way I would if I had a manual gearbox it does really intelligent down shifts in urban traffic that's kind of a tough one for a transmission to do but it does that well and all in all I'm looking at 30 point to total mpg after three days and I think about two hundred and twenty miles of driving in varied terrain city highway up and over mountain passes this car does really well it really delivers in real-world mpg okay let's price our little European flavored friend this 2012 Ford Focus titanium the top trim is 23 v that includes destination by the way if you want to say 500 on that get the sedan the hatchback is 500 more to my eye it's $500 worth of good looking 795 for navigation you have the screen but to have nav you got to buy that SD card from Ford that goes in the console 695 for that slick parking package and that's it you're rolling see next time