Used 2012 Ford Focus SEL 4dr Hatchback (2.0L 4cyl 6AM) Consumer Reviews
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3rd PCM Failure within 10K miles, under 100K
John, Birmingham, AL, 12/17/2016
Ford Focus SEL 4dr Hatchback (2.0L 4cyl 6AM)
41 of 42 people found this review helpful
Okay let me begin with this: I have written a previous review, but I lost my login, so I am back with a vengeance this time. As the title states, since my original post titled "I'm losing my job and livelihood over this thing!!!" it has had 2 more PCM failures. The first time, I DID lose my job. The boss was clear. "If you can't come to work I'll just have to replace you." Well at least he was cordial about it and gave me a good reference to a similar company. So two weeks after the initial failure, I was back to work. Just somewhere else doing the same thing. There was the 2nd PCM failure about 4 months afterwards. Same conditions: Car won't start. Either the PCM doesn't believe the transmission is in neutral and therefore safe to start the engine, or it cannot get the transmission into neutral. Had it towed to dealership. Only payed towing fee. Ford covered the repair. Now, only 2 months from that failure, the car is in my driveway with its 3rd PCM failure. SAME. CONDITIONS. People, this is multiple failure of a critical part of the car that has failed on me 3 times in less than 10,000 miles. I'm doing everything I can on my end to keep its maintenance up. I drive it reasonably, take good care of it, and it fails on me. Fails... fails... fails... There is no other explanation besides it is a flawed design, and Ford's response and actions are futile. See all of these good reviews on here? I can't explain them. There are millions of unhappy, stranded and possibly unemployed people all because they bought this car with a horrible transmission. I can't blame them or berate them in any way. I mean, it's a nice car, but it has this one MAJOR FLAW that can be a serious inconvenience at best, and life-threatening at worst. Google it. Spend a couple of hours researching every review you can find. Find a way to contact authors of positive reviews and ask them is their transmission still operating properly. For the third time in one year, my car is literally being described with an old Ford-bashing acronym, and I don't think I need to say which one. Please for love of whatever... DO NOT buy one of these things, used or new. Ford's Powershift transmission is prone to random failures despite operating reliably up to the point of said failure. UPDATE: Okay, so let me update everyone on the 3rd PCM failure. First let me start with having to pay out of pocket for a rental. My insurance company would not cover it, but that was my mistake. Ford, however, straight up declined any suggestion of transportation assistance. I had to take an Uber (google it) to a rental car place and spend, say, $480 to rent a car for a week. I made arrangements to have the car towed down to the nearest Ford dealer, which thankfully my insurance covered the cost of the tow. SO... I get a call at work... my mother was at home when the tow truck came to get my car. She informs me that the tow driver 'jumped it off, started it, and drove it onto the tow truck' Read that again. 'JUMPED IT OFF. STARTED IT. AND DROVE IT ONTO THE TOW TRUCK' You've gotta be bleeping kidding me. I called the towing company, spoke to the driver. He confirmed that he jumped off the battery and started the car, and simply drove it onto the truck. First of all... whatever happened to it not starting? And since when did the battery die? So I took off work, drove my $480 rental car down to Ford, and asked to see the car. I got in it, and it started right up. And then I kinda lost control of myself and flung my arms about, cursing the car as if it were playing a sick, expensive game with me right in front of the mechanic. This is not funny. It's good I guess because I have my car back and it seems to be working fine. My speculation is that when the battery went completely dead... overnight... with the car sitting there doing absolutely nothing... that it must have caused some sort of hard system reset or something. I don't know. FINAL UPDATE: Driving home from work tonight it's been falling out of gear, which is indicated by going to idle at highway speed (engine is temporarily disconnected from drive wheels), jerking, slipping, picking the incorrect gear (I mean the VERY incorrect gear, like, 5th at 20mph or 2nd at 50mph). I can't stand it any longer. It will cost me dearly and put me in another financial pit to trade it in and attempt to finance another car, but I have no choice.
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Dont Buy
penny, Spartanburg, SC, 12/04/2015
Ford Focus SEL 4dr Hatchback (2.0L 4cyl 6AM)
21 of 22 people found this review helpful
Please don't buy this car.....clutch problems fro day one!
The only one
duke2012, Elberton, GA, 11/17/2014
updated 05/20/2019
Ford Focus SEL 4dr Hatchback (2.0L 4cyl 6AM)
19 of 20 people found this review helpful
We have a 2012 Focus and it has been a great little car. We are averaging 33.5 mpg on a trip from GA to TX & back, interstate and stop & go driving. At 20,000 miles we started having transmission shudder, I called service at our dealer. Decided it carry it in with it was time for an oil change, in a week got a notice from Ford stating to carry it in for service on the transmission. We carried it in the first of September and got it back the same day, no more shudder. We now have a 7 year - 100,000 warranty on the transmission. Dealership and Ford did everything to make us happy. Not sure about the other post but we are happy. "Update"; Had a recall on the door latches and they checked the transmission. They called me and told me the clutch pack was out of specifications; the clutch pack, seals, door latches were replaced at no cost. We still like the car. 11/17/2017 update; no problems transmission is shifting okay and no shudder. We still like the car 05/17/2019.
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HATED THE CAR!!
Mark Clemson, Harrisburg, PA, 10/28/2015
Ford Focus SEL 4dr Hatchback (2.0L 4cyl 6AM)
24 of 26 people found this review helpful
I bought my 2012 Ford Focus in October 2014. I should have done the research, but I didn't. I test drove the car and noticed a little shutter and how it went backwards on the hill, but didn't think anything of it. I should have!!! Within two weeks of having the car, my breaks started squeaking. I thought I needed to changed my brake pads. They said they were fine and couldn't duplicate the problem. Then two weeks later, it start stuttering to the point the car would shake every time I hit the gas to get the car moving. Took the car back and thankfully the warranty covered that. The brakes continued to squeak and I just had my mechanic change the brake pads anyway and the squeaking stopped. The car worked fine for a while then all of a sudden the stuttering came back and also when I would drive in the city and hit a even a small bump it felt like the back of my car would fall apart. I took the car in and was told I needed new shocks in the back. $450 dollars later I had new shocks and a realignment and that noise was still there!!! The stuttering would happen EVERYTIME I hit the brake and then the gas. Finally after dealing with this for over 6 months, the car violently shook on a hill while trying to accelerate. I couldn't take it anymore and traded it in the next day. I didn't get very much for the car and had to take money out of my Savings account to get my new Nissan Altima. Didn't want to, shouldn't have had to, but it was a great decision. I had my 2012 Ford Focus for a year and dumped almost $1000 of my own money on repairs and only put on 13,000 miles on the car. This was a complete POS and the biggest waste of money ever!! DON'T BUY THIS CAR, YOU WILL REGRET IT!
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Great little car
william ahrens, Manteo, NC, 06/19/2018
Ford Focus SEL 4dr Hatchback (2.0L 4cyl 6AM)
17 of 18 people found this review helpful
After Owning this car for five years and over 90,000 miles, I can say that this is a great little car. For the most part, I’ve only ever done regular servicing. Th one problem I had was with the transmission seals. They were replaced under warranty and that’s about it. My only complaint is the cloth trim on the doors comes loose after a few years and the only way to fix it is to either replace the door panel or pay a custom upholstery shop to fix it. The bulk of people that buy this car thinking it’s an automatic don’t understand it’s actually an automated manual and because it has a clutch and drives like a stick, you have to learn to control the throttle like you’re driving a stick. Once you figure this out the car is completely smooth with no jerking or hesitation.
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