2012 Ford Focus Hatchback

2012 Ford Focus Hatchback (5DR)

26 - 28 city / 36 - 38 highway <- MSN auto

The compact Ford Focus seems to be a popular car considering I see them everywhere, this particular one is the hatchback model, which I see less frequently then its 4DR counterpart.  This model is also a 4DR but actually falls under a 5DR classification.  Apparently whoever makes up these classifications thinks that people should enter through the trunk.  I always say this but it bears repeating, this model is used in a rental fleet, therefore there are no super special options, we don’t have enough money for that.

The first thing I noticed about this car (besides that it is a hatchback) is how low to the ground it is; I am 5’5” and I could very easily hop on top of this thing it’s so small.  With that said, it also looks very cute, cuter than the 4DR model in my opinion.  It’s so cute you just want to put a little bow on it, but considering the smaller something is the cuter it is, this isn’t surprising.  If you are big, burly, lumberjack man then this might not be the right choice for you.  The rear windshield has a wiper, and I’m starting to see a trend with hatchbacks that they all have the rear wiper.  I don’t know why hatchbacks only get this goody, the rear windshield isn’t even that much larger than a regular 4DR car, but apparently hatchbacks are better and therefore they deserve better features.  An exterior feature that definitely deserves a mention is the fact that this particular Focus does not have a gas cap.  The gas lid opens by just pressing it and there is a yellow ring around the hole explaining that there is no need for a cap and that you can just go ahead and put the nozzle right on in.  I want to explain this to everyone because customers just do not understand this – you don’t need a gas cap!  It even explains that on the yellow ring; so please, people, if you are renting a car and see this don’t come back in all confused saying someone stole the gas cap, just use your eyes and read.

So cute <3

Not surprisingly the trunk is large, but what I did find surprising was that this trunk was larger than other hatchback trunks I have seen, including the midsize Toyota Prius.  For such a small car the trunk is quite large, but upon moving inward you see why – the backseats are so tiny and give very little leg room.  In smaller cars and even smaller SUVs this is a common trade off, if you want a large trunk space you better hope you don’t drive around tall people.  You can make the trunk even larger by putting down the back seats, a common feature in all cars. 

You can put a lot junk in that trunk!  Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The fabric that is used for the seats was surprising because at first glance it looks pretty cool.  It is difficult to explain but they look like what I imagine race car (or even jacked up, fast and furious-style drag race car) seats look like.  In this model the seats were two-toned with black on the outsides of the seats and gray for the middle of the seats.  The gray, middle section was made out of some tightly woven fabric, which I think is what gives them the race car appearance.  They are also surprisingly comfy and the woven part feels quite nice on the skin.  So at first glance you think “wow, this looks really nice!  It might even hold up well,” but stop there because they do not.  The back seats look just fine, but when looking at the front seats (which utilizes the same material and design, obvs) you can see that there are many places where the middle, woven parts have been almost pulled out, like a snag in a sweater.  It seems that things like to catch on this material, like pocket details on jeans if you wear fancy jeans or safety pins if you are a punk cruising around in a Ford Focus, and that causes the material is get pulled out of the seat.  It doesn’t look very nice and if it’s happening in a 2012, imagine what it will look like in 5 years.  A fabric that looks nice but will not last is not worth the trouble.  Odd features in the back seats of this car are two small carved out spaces near the middle and bottom sides on the seats, closest to the doors.  They are shallow and oddly shaped so I don’t even know what you could put in there that wouldn’t just like, fall over and make a mess.  There is the possibility they are strictly for design, meaning they are useless.  One last thing to mention in the back is that there are small plastic pieces in the back doors that are supposed to make the area a cup holder, but they do not look very secure and unlike most door cup holders they are not carved out, creating a nice shape to fit a bottle, so it doesn’t even seem like a bottle would fit in this area.  Door cup holders are made exclusively for bottles, not actual cups, and I don’t recommend putting something like a Starbucks cup in one of them if you don’t want liquid all over the side of your leg.

Inside the red circles are where the little spaces are located.  Seriously useless.

Moving on to the front of the vehicle there is a small but long glove compartment, making it pretty shallow.  This disproves my totally scientific hypothesis that the smaller the car the bigger the glove compartment.  In other compacts like the Kia Soul and Nissan Versa the glove compartments are huge, while in SUVs and larger sized cars the glove compartments tend to be small.  I thought I had detected a trend, but sadly I am proven wrong.  Inside the glove compartment you will find the AUX port, which is one of the most stupid places to put it and it took quite a while for me to find the dumb thing for a customer, and ultimately someone from another rental car booth next to mine had to go out there and help me find it.  This isn’t the first time Ford has put the AUX port in strange places, it is almost hidden inside the middle cubby of the 2012 Ford Fusion, and I bet the engineers get some sort of sick satisfaction by imagining people looking all over for it, why else would they make it so hard to find? 

You’ll notice that the middle section is very compact.  It includes a lidded cubby that is quite small even for a compact and directly in front of it is a covered 12 volt AC jack with two small carved out notches that look like they might be for change, but are practically useless because 1) you would have to line the coins up on their sides so that they are standing straight up and who has time for that when driving down the highway away from a toll, 2) the only way the change would stay up is if it was all full, and 3) it is large enough for quarters which means it is too large for dimes.  I wish I could have found  pictures of this so you could see it because I might be wrong about the whole thing but if it’s not meant for change I have no idea what it could be used for.   There are also two, shallow cup holders that seem too shallow to effectively hold something in place during a turn, the parking brake which is very short and small therefore very cute (as cute as a parking brake can be), and the shifter is above the brake and takes a quite a bit of space for such a small area.  On the left side of the shifter is another carved out area, much bigger than the alleged change holder, and more like the size of the pointless spaces in the backseats but this one is longer and narrower, like an oval.  Why, Ford, did you include all of these totally pointless areas?  The shape, the angle, and the placement make this particular spot totally useless!  On the bottom of the middle console you will see that the temperature controls are large but straight forward and easy to use, and directly above them is the lock/unlock button for the whole car.  None of the doors have a physical locking mechanism (the little tab you push or pull), and there is not even a lock/unlock button on the driver’s side door, there is only the one in the middle console.  I don’t like this idea because it makes it more difficult to get into the car if you lock yourself out (but maybe it makes it more difficult to steal, so that’s a plus), and what if there is a blown fuse and makes the electricity go nuts?  You wouldn’t even be able to physically lock your car.  It was also difficult to find, hiding in plain sight if you will. 

Inside this red circle is another carved out space.  This also gives a good idea of the two-toned seats, and before anyone calls me a lying liar who lies, the colors in this model are inverted from the one that I was in.

Moving up is the radio/media control that has a strange/interesting lay out where all of the buttons are on a slant either to the right or the left.  When you first look at it you think “whoa,” but I actually like it because it doesn’t look too clunky to me, you can quickly get used to it, and it’s easy to use.  Above the controls is actual radio display which is nothing special. 

I little goofy looking, right?  Notice the lock/unlock button near the bottom center, above the hazard flasher button.

There are a few miscellaneous features that deserve to be noted.  First, the dashboard is very long, and that gives you a longer and larger windshield, but I feel like that space could have been utilized better.  Second, there are no cup holders inside the front doors, and I only point this out because it is one of the only cars I have been in so far that has something of a cup holder in the back door but nothing in the front.  Third, there is no spot for your sunglasses, and I am finding that most compact and smaller cars do not have a designated place for these.

The thing I like the least about this car is sitting behind the steering wheel, which is definitely not a good thing if you actually like being comfortable while you drive.  First, the steering wheel is large and the front door opening is rather small, so it makes it difficult to get in and out of this car for a large and in charge individual like myself.  The passenger door opening is also small, but without the steering wheel in the way it’s easy to get in and out.  Also, because the car sits so low it almost feel likes pulling yourself off of the ground when getting out; not bad for a young person with good knees, but if you do have chronic knee/leg problems or pain this is something to consider.  The small door obviously leads to a small driver’s side window and creates a blind spot on your left side that you don’t normally get in cars.  In fact, it was a lot like a blind spot that was in a big stupid Dodge Ram pickup truck I used to drive.  Getting past blind spots is obviously something everyone has to do to drive, but if you are used to driving little cars this particular spot might take some time to get acclimated to, so proceed with caution.  The large steering wheel has pretty standard features integrated in it, including the radio/media controls on the right hand side, the dashboard display controls on the left hand side (I will get to those shortly), and on the bottom left hand side are the cruise control settings.  I like that the cruise control settings are buttons (I hate the dumb stick controls), but I don’t like the design of these ones, they are so unnecessarily big, awkward, and take up a lot of space.  The only good thing about cruise control settings being so large is that customers can find them easily and they won’t call me when they are on the road already asking where they are, because I know every little detail about every car we rent without even looking at it.  All of these features combined creates a claustrophobic feeling that makes it quite uncomfortable (at least for me) to even sit behind the wheel.  Maybe a petite person might not feel this way and maybe it is a feeling you will get over after a while, but why even go for a car that makes you feel that way to begin with?

First, the red circle on the radio section is the location of the lock/unlock button.  The red circle on the steering wheel is where the clunky cruise control settings are, and I have no idea what is in the blue circle, hence the red question mark.  Possibly some feature you can upgrade to?

I want to take a sidebar and talk a bit about the dashboard display.  In the middle of the display is a little box, where if you are lucky enough to figure it out, it shows the odometer and trip meters, but the stupid interface (is that the right term?) is a freaking labyrinth, press the wrong button and you are face to face with the Minotaur.  As I mentioned, the dashboard display controls are found on the steering wheel and using those you can move through the countless menus and try your best to get to the information you’re actually trying to find.  Features that are needlessly complicated are not good for rental cars and if you are looking to purchase this vehicle then you will have to sit down and read through the manual to be able to properly utilize this display, and who knows, there might actually be some useful information buried in there somewhere but I will probably never know.  The display itself is quite small and digital but in our fast-paced, high-tech world this particular display is looking ever more antiquated because it has an analog feel.  I have been in other Ford Focuses (Foci?) that have a more modern looking display but they are equally, if not more, complicated.

The combination of the car being so low to the ground and so small makes driving it feel like you are driving a go-cart, but that’s not too out of the ordinary for a compact or sub-compact (i.e. Chevy Sonic, Hyundai Accent).  Not surprisingly you feel the road through the pedals and the steering wheel, but maybe combined with the seats it could be fun to go really fast and feel like are driving a race car (but you have to make the gear shifting noises, too. rrrrRRRRRrrrrr).  The car accelerates very easily but it’s not smooth and it jerks you around a bit.  The steering wheel doesn’t move as freely as some other compact cars (not even close to the Kia Soul), and it feels just like moving the wheel in the standard size Ford Fusion.  It’s not bad, but I would have liked it to be easier to compete with some of the other compacts, but the turning radius for this little car is great, getting into parking spots would be no problem.

Ultimately I would not get this car and it’s because of how claustrophobic it makes me feel, and why would I shell out the cash for a car that makes me uncomfortable?  The features are also too complicated and many are useless (all of those pointless nooks and crannies). But if you are looking for something small that can still fit a lot of stuff in the trunk (just not people) it could be a viable option.