Ford Focus vs Chevy Cobalt?

[Shuriken]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm moving on from the Cobalt and Focus. Have enough info. Might choose neither. Will continue searching and let you know.

 

[RaWarrior]

+1 for the Mazda. Costs a little bit more, but you get a lot more car so it's an overall better value. Definetly one solid notch above the econo-box class.

The Focus has a nicer interior. You won't forget you're in an economy car, but it's very tolerable. The Cobalt has crappy seats and just hard, rattle-y plastic all over the place. Overall felt cheaper. Door handle felt like it would snap off with anything but the most ginger pull in particular. Neither approaches "sporty", but IMO the Focus drives a bit better overall.

 

[Geek_Law]

I'll contribute here. I bought a brand new '05 Ford Focus when they came out and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I only put 2500 miles on it over the course of a year, so I sold it. I'd happily have another one.

That's not true. My F150 has that mileage on it.

Yeah, I also have an american car with loads of miles. 140,000 and counting on the Jeep that I drive when I'm not in the mood for driving the bikes. It does have many quirks however. But it still drives and considering how few miles I put on on a car (because I ride the bikes when I can), I just keep stacking up the miles.

my first vehicle was a 91 chevy S-10 i paid 600 bucks for with 160,000 miles on it. sold it 2 years later with 225,000 miles on it for $800

Can you please share with us what in the world you were doing that you put 65,000 miles on a car in two years! That is amazing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kaboom
If it makes any difference......Ford at least did not take taxpayers money to continue to sell overpriced boring junk like GM did....

I agree 100%. There will NEVER be a GM or a Chrysler in my future. I consider their actions completely unacceptable. I will happily buy a Ford. I will gladly buy a Honda or Toyota or Nissan. I will absolutely not be giving a penny to GM or Chrysler. Honestly though, after buying a brand new 2006 Chrysler Pacifica for my wife, and them dumping it a couple of months later, I had already ruled Chrysler out of my future anyway, based simply on very poor quality. That car was the biggest piece of crap I had ever owned.

 

[ghostntheshell]

If you are interested in a nice economic sporty vehicle - try the SVT Focus.
That was around 170hp and the suspension is amazing.

Also - Heretic - who is that wonderful hottie in your sig?? Ha ha

 

[[email protected]]

I agree 100%. There will NEVER be a GM or a Chrysler in my future. I consider their actions completely unacceptable. I will happily buy a Ford. I will gladly buy a Honda or Toyota or Nissan. I will absolutely not be giving a penny to GM or Chrysler. Honestly though, after buying a brand new 2006 Chrysler Pacifica for my wife, and them dumping it a couple of months later, I had already ruled Chrysler out of my future anyway, based simply on very poor quality. That car was the biggest piece of crap I had ever owned.

Funny you say that. My wife and I picked up a used '05 pacifica in '07. Only had one owner and 24K. The cheap one with FWD, not AWD. Had the car for 6 months and my wife complained that the steering felt awkward and was making clicking noises when she turned. I said don't worry about it. Well, she pulled into the driveway and heard a loud crash and the car came to a dead stop. She called me and told me the story and I asked what happened. She had said " I don't know, I think the moter fell out?! Laughter... Seriously!". I asked a couple questions and said OK, I'll come check it out.

Well, I got home and looked underneath and I see that the front half has dropped to the ground!! The car is unibody construction and the front frame rails bolt to the unibody. There are rubber bushings at the connection of the front section to the main unibody. The bolts basically ripped right through the rubber bushings and dropped the whole front section incluing motor and trans to the ground! It was very hard to see under there but I took some photos and it looked like there was not any steel caps on the ends of the bushings to prevent the bolts from pulling straight through. Crazy. See the pics

I was pissed. The car was towed and repaired for no charge but we still have issues from the incident that were never repaired such as a throttle cable that doesn't operate properly and I think the struts or some other suspension component was damaged too but no matter what I complained about, it never got repaired right.

And I did get a carfax before buying, it was clean.

Oh yea, and it goes thru 1 quart of oil/500 miles since we hit about 50K on the odometer. No leaks to be found??

 

[4gasem]

I am NOT a Chrysler fan at all... Not even a little bit. Plasticy(not a word) interiors and ****** build quality kept me away.

I don't have an issue with the money as long as they PAY IT BACK and LEARN THEIR LESSON!

Build us a car WE WANT!

Get us a dealer network not made up of ******** and morons.

GM actually has some NICE vehicles on the horizon. See pic of the Opel. It's coming in to the US as a Regal GS.

Chris

 

[gamorg02]

wow mike thats awful.

 

[[email protected]]

wow mike thats awful.

I'm just glad it happened as she pulled into our driveway instead of out on the road somewhere. THAT could have been bad

 

[gamorg02]

I'm just glad it happened as she pulled into our driveway instead of out on the road somewhere. THAT could have been bad

yea. back in college i was working for a pool company. we had a steak rack dualy truck that went about 45 mins to go get the pool parts (steel walls, stairs etc) and one guy would go do that and come back. it was about noon and we were at the boss's house and the guy pulled in with the truck and the front axle snapped and he slid down the driveway 10 feet. coulda been a lot worse with a ton o r so of steel walls going 65 mph on the highway , like he was 10 mins ago!

 

[ghostntheshell]

You should have demanded they back that Pacifica and went to the media with that story.

My dad needed tie rod on his brand-spankin-new Dodge Caravan. He had less than 10k KMS on it. That's kilometers and not miles.

They *really* must have bought ****** ****** parts to save costs leading up to the collapse.
Personally, I think Chrysler should have gone under. Period.

 

[4gasem]

You should have demanded they back that Pacifica and went to the media with that story.

My dad needed tie rod on his brand-spankin-new Dodge Caravan. He had less than 10k KMS on it. That's kilometers and not miles.

They *really* must have bought ****** ****** parts to save costs leading up to the collapse.
Personally, I think Chrysler should have gone under. Period.

I replaced all 4 of my control arms on my G8 for the same reason. They were bad BEFORE 10,000 miles.

 

[RaWarrior]

At the marina where I work we used to have a '99 Dakota with the 3.9V6. It had about 30k miles on it, though you would have guessed about 5x that by how it drove and all it's problems. Thing was the biggest p.o.s vehicle I've ever had to deal with. Over 2 years, the brake system failed three separate times, in three separate places, every time resulting in a total loss of brake pressure. Two of the times nothing happened, the third time it had a trailer behind it and broadsided a guardrail before grinding to a halt. Thing is, it wasn't even rusty, yet brake lines and junctions were popping randomly.

The V6 had absolutely no nuts at all. Anything much bigger than a jetski and you'd have to use low range to get it up the ramp. Every so often it would decide to have a "starter fit" and just not work until you turned the key about 50,000 times, then it would randomly start and be fine again for who knows how long. Hit a pothole and the radio died for good. Even the cup holders managed to break. We finally sold it off to some poor schmuck last spring for pocket change.

The Ram seems to be better built, and we've actually had very few issues with it despite that it's used pretty much exclusively for putting boats in and out of the water. It's not so road-worthy anymore, nobody trusts it to go any farther than around town but for a beater work truck it gets the job done.

 

[Geek_Law]

I don't have an issue with the money as long as they PAY IT BACK and LEARN THEIR LESSON!
...
Chris

Chrysler has already announced that they will not pay back their loans. See any of the links below. GM is still planning to repay the loans, but has not stated when they will do so. Ford has so far not taken loans, and is now unlikely to do so.

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/79386567.html

http://autos.aol.com/article/chrysl...aol.com/article/chrysler-gm-bailout-repayment

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/06/business/econwatch/entry4996099.shtml

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/05/news/companies/chrysler_loans/

Well, I got home and looked underneath and I see that the front half has dropped to the ground!!

Oh my freaking hell!

Well, I was not happy because I thought that their fancy $30,000 version should have a radio that doesn't crackle, a transmission that doesn't clunk, carpet that isn't peeling away from the floor, you know, little things like that. Again, this was a brand new car.

We immediately got rid of it, took a nice $6,000 loss or so.

Your story is MUCH worse than mine. Ugh. 25,000 miles and the bloody engine drops out. Great work Chrysler.

This is a company that definitely should have died. How we got to a place that ****** companies on the verge of bankruptcy deserve to be rescued with tax dollars is far beyond my puny brain's ability to understand. :ummm::ummm::ummm:

 

[Shuriken]

Glad I'm not driving a Cobalt with faulty EPS.... saw this one coming, thankfully.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source...aql=&oq=chevrolet+cobalt+&fp=baa94940edcea411