Faults:

Funny noise at idle speed when the clutch is up (sort of rattle snake).

Intermittent wipers stopped where they are when I put them at off (front only).

CD player sometimes jumps.

Tires were too small for my concept of a comfortable family automobile.

General Comments:

I put on 205-70R14 tires (about 9.7% bigger in term of distance and 7.8% in RPM), which upgrade the comfort to the Taurus/Malibu class, but decrease the available power. No proof that I'm saving more than 5% in gas mileage after a 1 month experiment

In term of gas mileage I got:

Summer:

City from 37 - 42 MPG.

Road from 38 - 43 MPG.

Winter:

City from 30 - 36 MPG.

Road from 33 - 38 MPG (Quebec).

Let said that I'm always driving between 1,000 and 2,500 RPM (max: 70 mph) and most of the time on mexican overdrive in the city (50%).

I've got all the statistics for 1 year prior. See 40mpg.org Focus for my techniques.

It's a Ford, so you don't expect to have Japanese fancier gadgets like a Nissan, but when you go for maintenance, it's much cheaper and as good...

Faults:

Rear stabilizer bar comes from the factory set wrong.

General Comments:

The zx3 handles and runs great for the first 10k to 15k.

After about 15k the rear end starts to feel loose.

Ford has a 'silent' recall on it as they say 'some' of the zx3's are set wrong.

The dealership did make sure to tell me to rotate my tires every six thousand miles, which is a great idea if you own a tire dealership, It ruined 4 tires instead of just 2.

I checked my vin with Ford itself and nothing came up as there being any problems or listed recalls.

I am now past the 3/36k warranty and into the worthless 100k drive train warranty.

Neither Ford or the dealership I purchased the car from did anything to notify me, I had to go in there angry and complaining before they gave me the "oh yeah now I remember" crap.

I have gone through 3 sets of rear tires on this car now and have had it. If this is how Ford backs their products I am washing my hands of them.

If you own one and are noticing the rear tires slanting out at the bottom, tilting like an A frame house in other words, take it back in now and demand they fix it.

The tires will start to look like someone twisted them and then the handling goes to pot.

Faults:

License plate light housing completely rusted out. At only 25,000 kms this really suprised me! Only a $12 part, but how many times am I going to have to replace this?

General Comments:

I just drove 4,000 km round trip to go back home for Christmas. I drove across Canada during some bad snow storms that came up from the U.S. Anyway, on icy roads I found that the rear of the vehicle wants to sway back and forth. I found that I expended a great deal of energy fighting what the car wanted to do. I have driven many vehicles in all types of weather, but this is the first time I have felt scared and unsafe!

When on ice, the back end of the wagon seemed to want to swing to the side. Once I hit dry pavement, the car would "kick" back into a straight line. This was very unnerving! Had the Ford dealership in a town we passed through been open, I would have dumped that car for something else; perhaps the Escape Hybrid.

It has been an okay car otherwise, although I find it to be very under-powered! Other vehicles in the same class seem to have better "get up and go". I found it to be reasonably comfortable on the long trip though.

I wish I had made a different purchase!