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Ford Focus Fails Moose Test, Nissan Pulsar Performs Well

An Swedish auto magazine has subjected three cars it calls "Golf rivals" to the famous moose test. The results? Ford's extremely popular Focus could be dangerous if your roads have really tall herbivores with antlers. Looks like Ford has problems from the North again!
Ford Focus Fails Moose Test, Nissan Pulsar Performs Well 1 photo
Photo: screenshot from Youtube
The idea of the moose test is very simple. It simulates what would happen if an animal suddenly appeared in the middle of the road and you had to avoid it. The driver swerves violently to the left and back into his lane.

The speeds at which it's carried is progressively increased until the car fails, but the Focus is unsafe even at the lowest speed of 68 km/h (42 mph). It's the little things that matter here. Because those cones on the right of your computer screen represent cars coming the other way and when the hatch goes completely through the ones on the other side, it's crashing off the road.

The Nissan Pulsar was tested under identical conditions and proved more stable. As you can see in the second video we added, it holds its line better and doesn't let go of its rear end as much. Some might see that as the electronic nannies not letting you have fun, but last time we checked moose don't have a sense of humor.

To call the Ford Focus a VW Golf rival is extremely unfair. In some markets, such as the UK, Ford sells a lot more cars. However, the Blue Oval has had problems from Teknikens Varld. In December 2014, these folks discovered that the all-new Mondeo is much heavier than claimed and would be illegal to load fully. The Mondeo Titanium 2.0 TDCi 150 the tried out was supposed to weigh 1,601 kg (3,530 lb), but tipped the scales at 1,880 kg (4,145 lb).

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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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