Review
The answer is very. While neighbours spend five minutes scraping ice off their windscreens, I simply get in, push the Quickclear button on the dashboard and sit in the warm listening to Terry Wogan as the heated front windscreen goes to work.
This has got to be Ford’s best invention ever, as it saves so much time in the mornings.
So it’s a shame that Ford’s clever thinking couldn’t have been applied to another area of the Focus – its clock.
You would think that changing the time would be a simple thing, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. I was a few weeks late in getting around to putting the clock back after British Summertime ended – perhaps a sub-conscious refusal to accept the onslaught of winter, and the effort which finally went into doing this was huge.
Unfortunately there is nothing in the owner’s manual which tells you how to change the clock (in our car the clock is linked to the satellite navigation and stereo systems in the colour screen).
So I resorted to sitting in the car and pushing every button in the vague hope of changing the time. After 30 minutes of trying, I’d had no joy so I rang our local dealership.
Thank goodness for Lucy at TC Harrison in Peterborough, who informed me that the clock must be pressed and held for four seconds before the time can be changed. I asked where she had found the information and she confirmed that it wasn’t in the manual. Apparently Ford recognises this omission and should be changing the manual soon.
Model: Ford Focus 1.6 Ti-VCT Titanium 5dr
Price (OTR): £15,825 (£20,025 as tested)
Mileage: 14,307
CO2 emissions (g/km): 155
Company car tax bill (2005) 22% tax-payer: £52 a month
Insurance group: 7
Combined mpg: 43.8
Test mpg: 33.2
CAP Monitor residual value: £4,900/31%
Expenditure to date: Nil
Typical contract hire rate: £300
Figures based on three-years/60,000-miles
