Since my last one spurred a bit of discussion, I figured I'd do another. This one is of more interest to me personally as I'll eventually be getting a Focus as a company car, sadly not a Zetec though 
Initial impressions:
Thank **** they haven't given me another ****ing Mk5 Astra.
Seriously though:
Exterior: It's a Focus, it's a European hatchback, there's thousands of them on the road, who cares. I guess it's pretty decent to look at. I don't even know what size engine is in the car as I couldn't be bothered to look at the back end.
Interior: Again, it's decent enough to look at, the plastic has a reasonably pleasing texture, not really much to differentiate it from the Vauxhall at this point. I wish there was some padding on the drivers door armrest. Even my 17 year old Datsun manages that.
Interior and controls
Upon noticing that the CD player had an Aux button my first priority was to locate the Aux input so I could hook up my N900 and enjoy some decent music on the journey. I looked all over the car, on the dashboard, in the storage area by the ciggy lighter, in the armrest and around the vicinity of the handbrake which is where Vauxhall put it. Nothing, ok lets have a look in the manual, there isn't one... to the internets!
It's in the glovebox!
Not only that it's right at the top just to the left of the catch meaning that once you've plugged in your cable you can't close the bloody glovebox. What the hell were they thinking?
The theme of odd placement of things continued with the headlight control, yes a rotary dial below and to the right of the steering column is hardly abnormal, but the positions on the dial are |parking lights -- off -- sidelights -- dipped beam|. This means that if you don't think about what you are doing and just mash that dial all the way to the left at the end of your journey, you'll end up leaving your lights on and you don't even get a warning beep because as parking lights it assumes you meant to do that.
I also didn't like the pull to activate fog light switch that forces you to switch on the front w
lights before the rear fog light. Again this is common, but it's wrong as the rear fogs are used when visibility is down to 100 metres and the fronts are used when visiblity is down to a few feet, or you want to show everyone what a **** you are. Vauxhall at least got this right in the Astra by providing separate buttons so that the ***** can be happy as well people who have heard of the highway code.
Likewise, pull on the wiper control lever and it will activate the washer... the rear washer. WTF? To activate the front it's a comparatively fiddly button on the side. Why? Why is the easier to use and more logical control given to the less important and less commonly used rear wash, rather than the front?
On a more positive note the stalks have proper mechanical latches so for all the points lost on the odd control placement and enforced w lights it still beats the Vauxhall thanks to this point alone.
The instrument cluster is a pleasing red and white scheme with a red matrix display for the usual trip computer functions. The display on the radio is the same shade of red but about 3 times as bright and unlike the main display it does not dim when you turn the lights on. As it got darker this got increasingly annoying as I had this red thing in the corner of my vision. Eventually I put some tape over it.
As for annoying things in my vision this model was fitted with the heated front screen, hundreds of thin wiggly lines down the screen which catch and reflect the sun if you are driving into it making for a very distracting hexagonal dot pattern. If my company car has this I will be praying for someone to smash the windscreen so that I can tell Autoglass that I don't have the heated front screen on my car.
Driving
There is one thing that makes all my complaints about control layout seem petty and insignificant, the seat. This is seriously one of the nicest, most comfortable drivers seats I've been in for a long time. It even beats my Volvo 940. After adjusting the lumbar support and driving to Stafford and back I had the least back pain I've ever had after such a journey. I could forgive all the above faults and put up with a nasty slow oil burning dog if I could only have that seat. This is as particularly impressive achievement because on the overnight stay I was unable to take my pain medication as it's incompatible with alcohol and when the company are paying for your meal.. well you've got to have priorities right?
Luckily for me the car wasn't nasty or slow to drive. It's acceleration was brisk, beating the petrol Vauxhall I had last time and the grip and handling were better than I was expecting, certainly more than adequate for the usage the typical buyer of this sort of car will be putting it to. It stopped rather well too.
Unfortunately the stopping brings me to some more negative points. I'm only 6' tall which is hardly gigantic yet when I had to stomp on the anchors thanks to a tit in a white van I smacked my forehead on the sun visor (which was in the up position), also the mirror was at exactly my eye level creating a huge blind spot and meaning I had to duck and lean forward to safely turn right at T junctions. I also found it annoying that the passenger side mirror had a pointless blindspot eliminator that served only to make it difficult to judge if you were far enough in front of the car you have just overtaken that you can pull in without compromising their stopping distance.
The audio system was surprisingly good, once I'd adjusted the retarded settings the previous driver had configured, Bass +7, Treble -7, why not just leave a note saying "I'm a massive chav who has no taste in music". Set them both to zero and it actually sounded right. I tested it with a bit of oldskool rave, some hiphop, and a bit of VNV Nation and at no point did I feel the need to crank up the bass to compensate for crappy speakers.
I did have issues with the indicator stalks, they seemed a little reluctant to cancel which combined with the really good audio system and the fact that the flashing arrows in the instrument cluster were completely obscured by the top of the steering wheel led to a few embarrasing moments of driving down a straight road with the indicator on.
I did 260 miles on less than 30 litres of diesel
Conclusion
In summary the car is more powerful, more torquey, generally better to drive and cheaper in terms of fuel consumption than the petrol Vauxhall Astra 1.8 Elite that National deem to be equivalent to this car. It has much better seating, though it could do with height adjustment*, and is marred by some odd control layouts that I'm sure I'd eventually get used to. I'd recommend it over the Vauxhall to pretty much anyone, unless the only thing you care about is a well designed cup holder as the Vauxhall one is bloody good wheras this one is just 3 shaped holes.
*If it had height adjustment, I couldn't find it and as there was no manual that was the end of that.
Initial impressions:
Thank **** they haven't given me another ****ing Mk5 Astra.
Seriously though:
Exterior: It's a Focus, it's a European hatchback, there's thousands of them on the road, who cares. I guess it's pretty decent to look at. I don't even know what size engine is in the car as I couldn't be bothered to look at the back end.
Interior: Again, it's decent enough to look at, the plastic has a reasonably pleasing texture, not really much to differentiate it from the Vauxhall at this point. I wish there was some padding on the drivers door armrest. Even my 17 year old Datsun manages that.
Interior and controls
Upon noticing that the CD player had an Aux button my first priority was to locate the Aux input so I could hook up my N900 and enjoy some decent music on the journey. I looked all over the car, on the dashboard, in the storage area by the ciggy lighter, in the armrest and around the vicinity of the handbrake which is where Vauxhall put it. Nothing, ok lets have a look in the manual, there isn't one... to the internets!
It's in the glovebox!
Not only that it's right at the top just to the left of the catch meaning that once you've plugged in your cable you can't close the bloody glovebox. What the hell were they thinking?
The theme of odd placement of things continued with the headlight control, yes a rotary dial below and to the right of the steering column is hardly abnormal, but the positions on the dial are |parking lights -- off -- sidelights -- dipped beam|. This means that if you don't think about what you are doing and just mash that dial all the way to the left at the end of your journey, you'll end up leaving your lights on and you don't even get a warning beep because as parking lights it assumes you meant to do that.
I also didn't like the pull to activate fog light switch that forces you to switch on the front w
lights before the rear fog light. Again this is common, but it's wrong as the rear fogs are used when visibility is down to 100 metres and the fronts are used when visiblity is down to a few feet, or you want to show everyone what a **** you are. Vauxhall at least got this right in the Astra by providing separate buttons so that the ***** can be happy as well people who have heard of the highway code.Likewise, pull on the wiper control lever and it will activate the washer... the rear washer. WTF? To activate the front it's a comparatively fiddly button on the side. Why? Why is the easier to use and more logical control given to the less important and less commonly used rear wash, rather than the front?
On a more positive note the stalks have proper mechanical latches so for all the points lost on the odd control placement and enforced w
lights it still beats the Vauxhall thanks to this point alone.The instrument cluster is a pleasing red and white scheme with a red matrix display for the usual trip computer functions. The display on the radio is the same shade of red but about 3 times as bright and unlike the main display it does not dim when you turn the lights on. As it got darker this got increasingly annoying as I had this red thing in the corner of my vision. Eventually I put some tape over it.
As for annoying things in my vision this model was fitted with the heated front screen, hundreds of thin wiggly lines down the screen which catch and reflect the sun if you are driving into it making for a very distracting hexagonal dot pattern. If my company car has this I will be praying for someone to smash the windscreen so that I can tell Autoglass that I don't have the heated front screen on my car.
Driving
There is one thing that makes all my complaints about control layout seem petty and insignificant, the seat. This is seriously one of the nicest, most comfortable drivers seats I've been in for a long time. It even beats my Volvo 940. After adjusting the lumbar support and driving to Stafford and back I had the least back pain I've ever had after such a journey. I could forgive all the above faults and put up with a nasty slow oil burning dog if I could only have that seat. This is as particularly impressive achievement because on the overnight stay I was unable to take my pain medication as it's incompatible with alcohol and when the company are paying for your meal.. well you've got to have priorities right?
Luckily for me the car wasn't nasty or slow to drive. It's acceleration was brisk, beating the petrol Vauxhall I had last time and the grip and handling were better than I was expecting, certainly more than adequate for the usage the typical buyer of this sort of car will be putting it to. It stopped rather well too.
Unfortunately the stopping brings me to some more negative points. I'm only 6' tall which is hardly gigantic yet when I had to stomp on the anchors thanks to a tit in a white van I smacked my forehead on the sun visor (which was in the up position), also the mirror was at exactly my eye level creating a huge blind spot and meaning I had to duck and lean forward to safely turn right at T junctions. I also found it annoying that the passenger side mirror had a pointless blindspot eliminator that served only to make it difficult to judge if you were far enough in front of the car you have just overtaken that you can pull in without compromising their stopping distance.
The audio system was surprisingly good, once I'd adjusted the retarded settings the previous driver had configured, Bass +7, Treble -7, why not just leave a note saying "I'm a massive chav who has no taste in music". Set them both to zero and it actually sounded right. I tested it with a bit of oldskool rave, some hiphop, and a bit of VNV Nation and at no point did I feel the need to crank up the bass to compensate for crappy speakers.
I did have issues with the indicator stalks, they seemed a little reluctant to cancel which combined with the really good audio system and the fact that the flashing arrows in the instrument cluster were completely obscured by the top of the steering wheel led to a few embarrasing moments of driving down a straight road with the indicator on.
I did 260 miles on less than 30 litres of diesel
Conclusion
In summary the car is more powerful, more torquey, generally better to drive and cheaper in terms of fuel consumption than the petrol Vauxhall Astra 1.8 Elite that National deem to be equivalent to this car. It has much better seating, though it could do with height adjustment*, and is marred by some odd control layouts that I'm sure I'd eventually get used to. I'd recommend it over the Vauxhall to pretty much anyone, unless the only thing you care about is a well designed cup holder as the Vauxhall one is bloody good wheras this one is just 3 shaped holes.
*If it had height adjustment, I couldn't find it and as there was no manual that was the end of that.
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![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
.the rest of it is praise btw...
. I wear sunglasses when I drive when the sun's out anyway so I guess that helped with the screen.