Quality? What’s that? Don’t ask anyone at Ford because apparently they don’t know. Now the Focus is in Consumer Reports’ crosshairs. Testers have a lot of positive things to say about the compact hatchback (or sedan), praising its sporty handling, well-controlled ride and solid interior. But it’s equal parts pleasure and pain with this car. They find the back seat very tight, even by compact standards. As with other Fords the controls are complicated and the Focus’ dual-clutch automatic transmission does not shift smoothly, even after a software update that was supposed to fix the issue. In AutoGuide’s humble opinion that’s your fault for buying one; you should have gotten a manual gearbox. Problem solved. Icing on this failure cake is reliability which is projected to be “much worse than average.”
