Thanish,

Much thanks for the tip! I never thought moving to S could actually *help* fuel consumption, but your explanation makes perfect sense... every time I get stuck in jams, I can see my FC shoot through the roof. Lately, I'm taking the risk/wear&tear to shut off my engine during stops when I can reasonably predict when the traffic will move again (eg. at traffic lights). This definitely improves my FC, but the inching along is still horrible. At those times (and ONLY those times) I wish I got a hybrid instead.

...then when I get to some clear roads, it's no regrets FoFo again!

This car seems to leave almost all electronics on *all the time*. Eg. the cigarette lighter (and therefore anything that's plugged into it) is on even when the car is off and locked. The two LCDs remain on for about a full minute unless the car is locked. Also, the USB also draws power when the car is off (should not be a big issue for a USB flash drive, but don't la leave your USB harddrive plugged in). When the car doors are open, a whole bunch of lights come on (ambient lighting, curb light, rear lights, side lights, etc).

I just took a photo of the battery, without the plastic cover....



....sorry about the dust .....

Since there appears to be no place to top up the battery water, I would think this is a maintenance-free battery. I would however fully agree that the placement and mounting of the battery is most un-user-friendly; you cannot even see the "health check" indicator as it appears to be on the other side, requiring the battery to be almost completely removed before you can see it!

What la wei.....

Ummm... just to share: I had a less-than-satisfactory experience with one of those discounted polishing jobs; ended up with them scratching the paint in a couple of locations. Not sure if they weren't careful just because it was so deeply discounted, or their quality is really so bad. That was my old car though, not the FoFo...

Now I wash my car by myself and use a sealant and Wipe-on-walk-away wax about once a month. Watermarks so far etch on the wax/sealant so don't seem to be permanent (yet)....generally happy with the look/maintenance. When I send it for polishing (hopefully not more often than once every couple of years) I will send it to a reputable shop and pay the price.

Compared with some of those really tip-top maintained cars, I notice quite a bit of orange-peel... dunno whether I'm picky, I got unlucky with my particular car, or the dark colour (Midnight Sky) makes it extra evident. How's yours?

... so it looks like to get an absolutely optimum finish, we may need to go the "extreme" route to level the paint (wet-sand & repolish or those deep cutting leveling pads specifically for orange peel) which is waaay beyond my DIY capability. I have found a detailing service that can do it, but still need to commit to the cost and time (up to 3 days, I estimate!) to get it done..... mebbe after year-end bonus time... heh heh....

Your candy red still makes heads turn, btw; so the added care to keep it looking fantastic is worth it, IMHO....

The engine is one thing; don't forget the dual-clutch transmission. Whatever the engine puts out, it gets to the wheels with effectively little loss and no lag. It's wonderful to feel actual acceleration to be tied with the pitch of the engine's induction sound; cars with torque converters feel "decoupled"/delayed.

I have no problems living with the peculiarities of DCTs (like the occasional juddering) in exchange for the "connected" feeling and responsiveness.

Actually ah... if one were to try to test out the acceleration from a standing start, would that mean the engine is just at idle when starting, OR do you/can you rev up while braking, then release?

purely academically speaking, of course ....

Mods will be minimal for a time.... don't want to jeopardize the 3-year free maintenance/5-year warranty cover!

Wait until you see the Ford Focus 2015 version.

+1

The recommended pressure is listed on the driver's door jam. The funny thing about this car (compared to my previous jap cars) is that there are different pressures listed depending on whether your car is usually lightly loaded or heavily loaded (lots of passengers/goods). Also, the front & back pressure levels are different.

No auto-lock for this car ... stupid, isn't it? There are some instructions provided by forums overseas on how to enable this feature, but they don't work.

Ummm... actually, from this forum & the Facebook group of Focus Mk3 users, there are very few instances whereby owners have such unbearable problems with the transmission system to the point of being forced to go back to the SC repeatedly.

Yes, the common "complaint" is the juddering in certain conditions and the grinding sound in certain other conditions. However, these are really characteristics that do not really impair the overall driving experience to the point that anyone really curses and swears never to look at another Ford again. In fact the juddering can be thought of as coming from driving habits based on all the years of driving jap cars. You might as well be complaining about how a manual car judders when you release the clutch too early/too fast.

There was some progress on a fix for this, but the last firmware update got screwed up, so the advice is not to try an upgrade until the new version ships in.

There are other problems which are REALLY of concern, for me most notably the higher occurrence of battery failure which is not good for such a new car. But since this is covered by the warranty AND by sheer luck it hasn't happened to me (selfish I know), I'm not going to let it impair my exhilarating experience so far of driving a Focus Mk3.

NB: I went to check out the Honda CRV yesterday.... OMG the trim quality is so poor compared to the Focus! I know this is not comparing like with like, but seriously for a RM150K car, this is unforgivable.

Can share what version got installed? Thanks in advance......

fastford,

Firstly, congrats on the new ride. I'm confident you will have an absolutely exhilarating experience with how the car performs.

I would suggest you join the Ford Focus MK3 - Malaysia Owners Group on Facebook as the group is quite active and it's a great place to share our enthusiasm for the car. In fact, if you can't get the details for the rims in this forum, I pretty much guarantee it can be found on the group page. It is a closed group so there's a little bit of registration that needs to be done, but the admins are usually very attentive.

There have been a few TT sessions (Teh Tarik) where the group members meet up; in fact the most recent was a trip for Kajang satay. Unfortunately due to a combination of bad timing on my part and family commitments, I myself have not attended these sessions yet.

Looking forward to your presence in the group!

To get the version number, you can try this:
- with the car completely off, depress the OK button on the Information Display control (right side of the steering wheel) then while depressed, press the START button (with or without depressing the brake). This will enter the Self-Diagnostic mode.

- use the up and/or down arrow keys on the Information Display control to navigate the various info & test screens, until you see 'NVM EEPROM' and a number below; that should be the software version number.

Firmware version please?

Wow... doing a clay & wax every other week is pretty financially "stressful" doing it outside. Hope you are getting a good deal and that they are doing a quality job for you.

I've been trying to keep up the discipline of washing it myself weekly, and either a self-applied wipe-on wax or sealant every other week, but honestly have skipped a few weeks in the past 5 months of ownership. Did a clay once at the start, and recently just the hood.... makes a HUGE difference! Plan to do the rest of the car this weekend (barring bad weather).

Have yet to send it off for a professional polish, even though the SA said they touched it up before handover. Overall the look is still acceptable to my untrained eye; no noticeable swirls/marring.

*sigh!* The agony and the ecstasy of Midnight Blue!!

Hi kl98,

Need to sort one specification detail out first: you mentioned 6 airbags but said your are considering the non-Plus. Unfortunately the non-Plus (like mine) has 4 airbags, not 6. I think the two missing are the curtain airbags for the rear passengers (not sure though).

In terms of long-term maintenance, I doubt any current Mk3 owner can objectively give you details, because the car is only a year-plus old in Malaysia, and it comes with a 3-year free maintenance contract; as such most/all of us have yet to really pay anything in terms of maintenance to date.

In terms of service centres, generally I think they are pretty similar to most other makes, meaning some are great and some are less so. I just sent in my car for the first 10k service; the personnel were very accommodating, but really this service was very minimal (oil change and oil filter change, plus diagnostics). I was a little less happy in that I was hoping to get details of the diagnostics (a little geeky), but didn't get it. However, other than that the experience was trauma-less.

As for the overall ownership experience, I think you can sense the tone from this forum (just see how many posts there are!). Personally, I have never had more satisfaction and enjoyment from driving/owning a car that with the Ford Focus Mk3. I still have a smile plastered all over my face each time I drive it.

Hi kl98,

No "problems" with the transmission, but yes, after the first 1K or so I did go through the low-speed juddering phase. Over the next couple of months, either the car learnt my driving habits or I learnt to adjust or for whatever reason the juddering is pretty much gone now. I asked about the firmware upgrade when I went for my first 10k service last week; the response was that I already have the latest version and that if there is no current problem, it is better not to change the firmware. I'll keep tracking this firmware upgrade over the next 5-6 months to see if there is really any benefit if I insist to upgrade in the next scheduled service.

To open the car door lock immediately, I find slipping in my hand into the door handle without my thumb gripping around the handle, a lot faster/better. I think the "Lock" sensor sometimes detects my thumb first, so invokes the 0.5 second delay before allowing me to open the door. Try it out to see if it helps. Also, when I walk up to the car from the back, I sometimes slip my hand into the back door's handle, just to unlock the car that sub-second faster, so that the car is already open by the time I walk the extra 3 feet to the front door. But I'm being weird....

I also had problems with the Sync; mine was that the Bluetooth Audio would not connect. Finally I read up to do a hard-reset by yanking the appropriate fuse from the internal fusebox (located under the front-passenger's leg area), waiting a couple of seconds, then pushing it back in. It worked! Now the car syncs with my phone for music playback using any app. Hands-free phone operations still work flawlessly, and no, the radio didn't reset.

FYI the fuse remover clip is in the FRONT fusebox, located in the engine compartment. Be prepared for some cursewords, as the cover is a pain to remove.