Ford Focus 2018 Review

When Australia’s remaining hatchback buyers (those who’ve yet to discover compact SUVs) go shopping, they usually come home with a Toyota Corolla, Mazda3, Hyundai i30 or Volkswagen Golf, and a minority of them buy other stuff.

Out of every five C-segment hatches Australians bought last year, three of them were Corollas, Mazda3s, i30s or Golfs. Everything else, including the Ford Focus, was demoted to the kiddy’s table to share the minority share of a shrinking pie.

Here’s the shocking figure for Ford: for every 34 mainstream small cars sold Down Under in 2017, only one was a Focus.

At least part of that was because the third-generation Ford Focus used one of the most maligned gearboxes in the history of the car, and the rest comes down to Ford Australia’s consistent inability to focus on more than one product at a time.

The all-new, fourth-generation Ford Focus has a big job ahead of it, then, to rebuild the credibility of one of Australia’s most underperforming badges.

Luckily, on engineering and usability merits alone, the new Ford Focus seems like it has its sleeves rolled up and ready for action. It’s very, very good.

You could mount a convincing argument that it may very well be the best car in the small hatchback class, and even if it’s not, it’s certainly a more credible player — assuming Ford remembers it’s still selling them in 12 months time.

The Mk4 Ford Focus hatchback will land in Australia in November in three model grades, with a starting price of around $24,000 for the Trend, climbing to a price around $27,000 for the sportier ST-Line (with its 7mm lower ride and firmer suspension) and topping out at the Titanium somewhere around $30,000.

There will also be a wagon in ST-Line, which will be the only Focus to score four-link independent rear suspension. It’s needed, Ford says, to cope with variable loads (it’s also a handy thing to have in the toolkit for the back-ends of the upcoming Focus ST and Focus RS).

There will also be a Ford Focus Active, a high-riding but still front-wheel drive crossover version of the hatch, which we’ll get in 2019. Australia will likely get the sedan version some time in 2019 but the flagship Vignale luxury variant with excellent active suspension, is Europe-only.

All of our new Focus models will be built in Germany (instead of Thailand) and will be fitted with a conventional eight-speed automatic. If that doesn’t make buyers forget about the ugly PowerShift recall, a five-year warranty may help.

With no diesel for Australia, the only engine offered in the Ford Focus will be a new 1.5-litre turbocharged three-cylinder petrol that supplants the current model’s 1.5-litre turbo four.

The charming triple doesn’t short-change anybody, either, because its 134kW is 2kW up on the old engine while retaining the same 240Nm torque figure. Fuel economy will also benefit.

The new Ford Focus has a 50mm longer wheelbase, with all of that and more handed over to rear seat legroom, yet overall the hatch is about the same length as its predecessor.

Luggage space is up, as is head, shoulder, knee and legroom, while fuel consumption is down.

The good part of all of this is that the 2018 Ford Focus hatchback is now a very, very good car. It’s so good it’s challenging the Golf for the class lead in some areas, but falls behind in others (like interior materials quality).

Its ride is good, it’s quiet and the cabin has just about everything people have come to expect in this class, with the Focus ST-Line looking like the pick of the model walk for value and dynamics.

The success of the new Focus starts outside, where the look is better proportioned and more finely detailed than before, even if little about it screams originality.

The Focus offering improves even more inside, where the upper-spec models now score a stand-alone touch-operated 8.0-inch infotainment screen atop a surprisingly shallow dashboard, which no longer eats deep into the cabin area.

There is a major downside to this, though, and one that Ford will rue during the lifecycle of the new Focus: there is no digital instrument cluster and there’s no provision for one.

Volkswagen has had one (at least as an option) since last year’s Golf 7.5 facelift and it’s going to be standard on next year’s Golf Mk8. It looks on the surface to be an astonishing oversight.

There’s Ford’s SYNC 3 infotainment set-up, which is relatively easy to operate but doesn’t have the sharpness, nor definition, of the Volkswagen equivalent.

The Focus does come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so you can bypass SYNC 3 altogether most of the time, and you can use voice commands for the sat-nav, which helps, too.

The new Focus’ rear-seat upgrade isn’t just in knee room, but in new windows that are designed to let more light in. There’s also a trick plastic cover option that pops out from the inner door skin and wraps around the rear door’s trailing edge whenever the doors are opened.

It’s to save car park dings and scratches when the kids open the doors carelessly, though it looks a touch flimsy for robust use and it also makes the door rattle when you close it.

The Focus hatchback’s luggage area is good, at 365 litres, but it doesn’t lead the class and creates its space deep into the floor, rather than long into the cabin area. There’s no word on what that final figure or dimensions will end up being in Australia, because (fortunately) Ford is almost certain to add a space-saver spare wheel here.

There’s a whole bunch of driver-assistance systems, too, including autonomous emergency braking (AEB), a 180-degree reversing camera, night-time pedestrian detection, cyclist detection and a lane-keeping system which buzzes the steering wheel when you meander across the lines.

Higher-spec cars, like the Focus Titanium, have adaptive cruise control and a stop-go traffic jam aid as standard equipment.

The Focus entire chassis architecture is new, with a massive step forward in body stiffness and torsional rigidity -- so much so that the Focus has claimed five NCAP stars in Europe with only six airbags, rather than the now-customary seven.

Point of order on driving impressions: Australian Focus hatches will all use twist-beam rear suspension, while the all the test cars we drove all employed a four-link independent rear-end.

Ford claims there is little difference, in which case a four-link set-up seems a mighty expensive and heavy thing to do for no clear benefit...

Nevertheless, the Focus is an easy car to quickly feel at home in. It starts with the little three-cylinder engine, which is a delightful companion and its exertions are beautifully isolated from the car’s occupants.

It’s smooth and calm, surprisingly flexible and it’s even cheerful about chasing high revs at full throttle.

Do that and the six-speed manual Focus ST-Line will run to 100km/h in 8.3sec (0.6sec up on the automatic) and on to a 222km/h top speed (14km/h higher than the automatic).

The manual is a neat, slick gearbox with positive throws and an easy clutch engagement. The driver’s seat is unusually straight on to the steering wheel and the powertrain matches together well.

Critically, the automatic transmission Focus is slower in a straight line, but easier to live with in real life. It’s a calming influence on an engine that sometimes wants to just play and its shifts are gentle and barely noticeable.

The gearbox changes with more positivity on both up and down shifts in the car’s Sport mode, but that’s not the best thing pushing the console-mounted button does.

The least convincing part of the new Focus’ chassis dynamics is the steering, which feels like it’s a video game from the 1990s. However, it’s a transformed car in Sport mode and if you could set it to start there as a default every day, you would.

The steering in the fun mode comes alive with feedback and weighting, allowing the driver to deliver nuance and receive understanding that just isn’t possible in the default mode.

Focus’ handling on 17-inch wheels and tyres is unshakeably faithful, without ever feeling dull or too conservative. With the new Focus, Ford’s chassis engineers have trodden a fine line between sporting confidence and mass-market appeal, and done so beautifully.

Indeed, the new Ford Focus carries more mid-corner speed than most hatch buyers will know what to do with, and it’s so balanced and natural that most people will never pick it for a front-wheel drive.

The Focus is even better in urban and highway situations, where it shines for its quiet cabin and soft ride. There’s enough engine strength at low revs to be able to leave it in taller gears to pull out of corners and the little three-pot never feels thrashy or strained.

It walks over sharp bumps, potholes and big undulations like they’re irrelevant, even though the kerb weight is only 1369kg. Overall, there’s far more refinement than any previous Focus has ever had.

The new Ford Focus feels like it hasn’t just stepped up a single generation. It’s a very good car that feels like it’s stepped up a whole class.

How much is the 2018 Ford Focus ST-Line?
On sale: November 2018
Price: $27,000 (estimated)
Engine: 1.5-litre, three-cylinder, turbocharged, petrol
Output: 134kW/240Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 5.4L/100km
CO2: 123g/km
Safety rating: TBC