I bought my MK4 Titanium Style 1.0 Ecoboost 125PS petrol manual, new, just over a year ago. First car I've bought new. Prior to that I had the same model (but not Style) 2018 plate, which I bought used.

Overall thoughts, moans, etc, from an amateur.

Plus side:

It's generally great to drive. Fun handling, as many reviewers put it. In the right gear, at the right revs, it really shifts. I look forward to driving it. Very comfortable ride. I'm no fan of larger, sports wheels, so the 16 inch wheels really suit me.

I think the exterior styling is very good. Inside, not too bad. And the Titanium Style luckily doesn't have a shiny/reflective strip on the dash - another plus for me.

In all, I'm content with it, but some things continue to irritate, some more than others...

Less good:

Compared to other cars, the gear stick position for each gear is further to the left. Not sure why. But I've got used it.

After about the first 2000 miles (currently only 6000 on the clock) the faint clunk appeared, which I also noticed on the used Titanium I had. Not a fault. Seems to be the way it's designed, but I don't experience it on other cars from other manufacturers. When releasing the clutch pedal when changing from first gear to second, and less so from second to third, there's a faint clunk from beneath the gear box area, especially at low or moderate revs. Sort of got used to it now, and I increase the revs a bit.

The engine is amazing for its size, but on the flat, it doesn't really like being in fourth gear until the speed is about 33 mph. Try it at 30mph and you can tell from the sound that it ideally should be in third gear. My previous cars were a bit older and had larger engines, so maybe its simply down to engine size, and nothing to do with engine type.

The radio knob is pretty poor. Twist it and it feels great, but then half a turn later it's stiffer, or is dragging inside, without the normal feel to it. Hard to explain. But then try it again a few second later and it's okay. Odd.

The cornering (not adaptive) headlamps are pointless and annoying. Taking advice from someone here, as the evenings have got darker I've tried leaving on the front fog lights (cornering lights are just the front fogs switching on automatically when turning the steering wheel enough). I'll experiment more, but the fogs light up quite a lot of the road on the right. Maybe I'll get used to that. Cornering lights cannot be disabled, alas.

Most frustrating, by far, in autumn, winter, spring: the climate control. Example: 10 degrees outside and you have it set to 20 degrees. In other cars that would be more than warm enough and it would reach roughly the right temperature fairly quickly. Not in the Focus. After about 20 minutes the vents start blowing barely luke warm air quite strongly, even though the car is nowhere near 20 degrees. The thermostat seems poor. So you knock up the temperature setting to say 23 or higher. Not long after it again strongly blows luke warm air, even on the lowest strength setting. So I turn down the wheels near the vents. Constantly wrestling with it except in summer. And the Auto setting seems no different to not having it in Auto. I think I'd prefer just aircon rather than climate control.  In summer the Lo (cold) setting is great. Nice and cool.

(This is long, but I wanted to make some comprehensive comments after 1 year of ownership.)

 

9 minutes ago, northern_nubie said:

I bought my MK4 Titanium Style 1.0 Ecoboost 125PS petrol manual, new, just over a year ago. First car I've bought new. Prior to that I had the same model (but not Style) 2018 plate, which I bought used.

Overall thoughts, moans, etc, from an amateur.

Plus side:

It's generally great to drive. Fun handling, as many reviewers put it. In the right gear, at the right revs, it really shifts. I look forward to driving it. Very comfortable ride. I'm no fan of larger, sports wheels, so the 16 inch wheels really suit me.

I think the exterior styling is very good. Inside, not too bad. And the Titanium Style luckily doesn't have a shiny/reflective strip on the dash - another plus for me.

In all, I'm content with it, but some things continue to irritate, some more than others...

Less good:

Compared to other cars, the gear stick position for each gear is further to the left. Not sure why. But I've got used it.

After about the first 2000 miles (currently only 6000 on the clock) the faint clunk appeared, which I also noticed on the used Titanium I had. Not a fault. Seems to be the way it's designed, but I don't experience it on other cars from other manufacturers. When releasing the clutch pedal when changing from first gear to second, and less so from second to third, there's a faint clunk from beneath the gear box area, especially at low or moderate revs. Sort of got used to it now, and I increase the revs a bit.

The engine is amazing for its size, but on the flat, it doesn't really like being in fourth gear until the speed is about 33 mph. Try it at 30mph and you can tell from the sound that it ideally should be in third gear. My previous cars were a bit older and had larger engines, so maybe its simply down to engine size, and nothing to do with engine type.

The radio knob is pretty poor. Twist it and it feels great, but then half a turn later it's stiffer, or is dragging inside, without the normal feel to it. Hard to explain. But then try it again a few second later and it's okay. Odd.

The cornering (not adaptive) headlamps are pointless and annoying. Taking advice from someone here, as the evenings have got darker I've tried leaving on the front fog lights (cornering lights are just the front fogs switching on automatically when turning the steering wheel enough). I'll experiment more, but the fogs light up quite a lot of the road on the right. Maybe I'll get used to that. Cornering lights cannot be disabled, alas.

Most frustrating, by far, in autumn, winter, spring: the climate control. Example: 10 degrees outside and you have it set to 20 degrees. In other cars that would be more than warm enough and it would reach roughly the right temperature fairly quickly. Not in the Focus. After about 20 minutes the vents start blowing barely luke warm air quite strongly, even though the car is nowhere near 20 degrees. The thermostat seems poor. So you knock up the temperature setting to say 23 or higher. Not long after it again strongly blows luke warm air, even on the lowest strength setting. So I turn down the wheels near the vents. Constantly wrestling with it except in summer. And the Auto setting seems no different to not having it in Auto. I think I'd prefer just aircon rather than climate control.  In summer the Lo (cold) setting is great. Nice and cool.

(This is long, but I wanted to make some comprehensive comments after 1 year of ownership.)

 

The issue with the climate being poor at heating is because Ford removed the auxilliary resistive heater early 2020 as a cost cutting measure.

17 hours ago, alexp999 said:

The issue with the climate being poor at heating is because Ford removed the auxilliary resistive heater early 2020 as a cost cutting measure.

TVM strikes again

 

17 hours ago, northern_nubie said:

The cornering (not adaptive) headlamps are pointless and annoying. Taking advice from someone here, as the evenings have got darker I've tried leaving on the front fog lights (cornering lights are just the front fogs switching on automatically when turning the steering wheel enough). I'll experiment more, but the fogs light up quite a lot of the road on the right. Maybe I'll get used to that. Cornering lights cannot be disabled, alas.

Upgrade the terrible halogen H8s in the fog lamps to LED, it works a treat

What an excellent write up David. Concise and well written. Nice to read some positive views on the 1.0 ecoboost. Far too many negatives due to the wet cam belt. You have many more miles to do before you possibly suffer or perhaps your car being so 'new' has a cam chain. I'm unsure. 

44 minutes ago, tazzman600 said:

You have many more miles to do before you possibly suffer or perhaps your car being so 'new' has a cam chain. I'm unsure. 

All Mk 4 1.0s have the cam chain (but still the wet oil pump belt).

6 hours ago, DaveT70 said:

TVM strikes again

 

Upgrade the terrible halogen H8s in the fog lamps to LED, it works a treat

Any recommendations for replacement LED lamps?

6 hours ago, DaveT70 said:

Upgrade the terrible halogen H8s in the fog lamps to LED, it works a treat

Thanks, but the headlamps are fully LED already. And the fog lamps aren't separate and lower down as in some models/years, but now integrated into each headlamp unit.

The whole concept of foglights seems to have been largely lost in recent times. I'm ready to be corrected but I've always believed the idea was that lights placed low down could be used to illuminate the road, and particularly the kerb, immediately in front of the car. These would be used instead of headlights when those threw up too much back-glare from fog. Now it seems they can't be used without the headlights switched on which pretty much negates their usefulness.

The law stated foglights could only be used in fog or when snow was falling because their low position meant they couldn't be angled downwards enough to prevent dazzle to oncoming traffic in clear conditions, though again that seems to be generally ignored nowadays.

Foglights integrated into the headlights just aren't foglights - period!

8 minutes ago, mjt said:

Now it seems they can't be used without the headlights switched on

With out digging through all the piles of old documents, I seem to recall that the need for front fog lights to be used together with "Dipped" beam headlights became a requirement around 1974, at the same time that it became a requirement the front fog lights could only be fitted in pairs and must be so wired that they operated together.

I understand that the front fog light regulations were amended sometime around 2008 to allow them to operate separately when been used as 'cornering lights'. I've never seen the amendment but I guess there must be one otherwise cars with independently operating front fog lights would fail the MOT 

On 9/27/2023 at 4:54 PM, alexp999 said:

The issue with the climate being poor at heating is because Ford removed the auxilliary resistive heater early 2020 as a cost cutting measure.

All versions or just Titanium?

EcoBoost 2.3 in ST gets hot ridiculously fast. I was sure it has resistive heater equiped.

1 hour ago, JackosXDA said:

All versions or just Titanium?

EcoBoost 2.3 in ST gets hot ridiculously fast. I was sure it has resistive heater equiped.

The notes I had were in German and translated so looking back I'm not 100% sure if it was a bad translation and if it is parking or aux heater. I'm sure I've seen both. Probably can see from asbuilt/forscan if it is fitted.

There are 3 Fuses in the umderbonnet Fuse Box for the Heater in mine, 2x60 and 1x40 Amp from memory. If the car has them fitted then it is almost certain that it has the Supplementary Electric Heater fitted. 

As far as I know, it is only active when the ambient temperature is below 9C and the output is regulated depending on conditions. 

Edit - Wrong info, It's 2x40 and 1x60 Amp on my car. 

The other thing about mine is that when the temperature is below zero, the interior of the car seems to heat up quicker than when the temperature is a few degrees above zero.

 

Edited September 29, 20232 yr by Tizer
Additional Info

Even if it is fitted, I suspect the aux heater will be cut-off along with heated screens when the SOC drops, so it may not be effective in cars that are constantly dropping into deep sleep overnight.