Subject: Donna's 2001 Ford Focus Junk Heap
Date:    7/6/2004

I too am a frustrated Focus Owner. I own a 2001 SE 4 Door Sedan.  I have
experienced significant problems with the braking system.  The first sign
was the embarrassing squeal of my brakes at red lights, this started early
on with just a few thousand miles on the car.  The dealership replaced the
rear brakes under what they called a "Bulletin" and told me the front ones
needed to be replaced at my expense and quoted an exurbanite rate.  I had
the front pads replaced at 30,000 miles at another repair shop  and they
continued the squealing.  At 50,000 miles I had had enough of the squealing
and took the car in for brake inspection and was told that the rotors and
pads needed replacing due to extreme uneven wear of the rotors.  This shop
wanted $500.00 just for the front brakes!  I ended up taking it to another
shop who charged me considerably less to replace the rotors, front pads and
brake shoes (since they said there was uneven wear of the brake shoes also
and showed me a crack in the left brake shoe).  Now at 56,000 miles the
squealing is back!  The car has also had a recall for a fuel pump problem
which was not completed properly the first time and had to go back for the
same recall!  It also had a recall completed at the same time for a sensor.
I believe there was at least one more recall that I can' think of at this
time!  Now the car has some other sort of problem which sounds like the fan.
This only occurs when the car is idling with the A/C running.  It sounds
like the fan comes on more often than usual and the car seems to shudder and
sometimes sounds like it might die, although, it is not overheating.  The
car is impossible to trade in due to it's value of probably somewhere around
half of what I owe.