2015 FORD Focus Facelift Review

The American manufacturer isn't ready to ditch the moniker yet, especially since the Focus is enjoying its sweet 16, is built in 8 plants and is sold in over 140 countries worldwide. On top of that, recently there's been a fiery debate between Toyota and Ford on who makes the best-selling car in the world.

We're not going to take sides here. Still, let us reflect a minute or so on this feat – last year alone, the Focus sold a trickle over a million, while the Toyota Corolla and the Ford F-Series pickup truck didn't manage to surpass that threshold. That's saying something about the mass-market appeal the Focus has and how popular the nameplate is right now.

After it debuted at the 2010 North American International Auto Show as a 2012 model, the third generation Ford Focus became a bigger sales success story than its predecessor in a matter of months. Stateside, Europe, Middle East, Australia, you name it, the Focus is, as ever, a global phenomenon and a staple in the highly competitive compact family car segment or the C-segment as it's called in Europe.

The pre-facelift Ford Focus Mk3 is something of a Cinderella compared to the Shrek-like Mk2 because the Kinetic Design language hides its sheer bulkiness. After all, a vehicle in this class needs to be family-oriented first and foremost.

In the original Focus Mk3's case, the trapezoidal grille of yesteryear was swapped for way cooler triangular features, while the rear lost the high-placed taillights of the Mk2. Instead, the design team decided to position the units lower, in a similar fashion to the cheap and cheerful Fiesta.

Interesting fact on these mid-cycle facelift jobs: most automakers spend about 30 to 40, rarely 50 million bucks for freshening a model from the ground up. That money covers everything: mechanicals, electrics and electronics, outside appearance and interior makeover, as well as new hues and the onboard gadgets that were unavailable on the original.

Here's the part that made jaws drop, including ours – a European Ford official disclosed that the company he's working for spent approximately $100 million on making the 2015 Ford Focus happen.

It's double the budget other carmakers allocate for revamping aging nameplates. He was a little bit too enthusiastic with the "all-new" part when we talked, but I'll grant him that the dough spent is easy to see and feel when comparing the pre-facelifted Focus to the 2015 model.

Where did that mountain of green dollar bills go on the outside? Almost everywhere, to be frank. The most obvious visual sauce is the Aston Martin-esque front grille that looks horrid on base models because those don't benefit from chromed horizontal bars.

In addition to that, the rectangular fog lights and their bezels are way more contemporary when compared to the round units of the pre-facelift.

The sculpted, muscular bonnet, all-new bumper and more prominent wheel arches render the 2015 Ford Focus a heavy facelift, not the typical half-assed job German brands are so good at.

Even though designers didn't change much at the rear, there are some details that make the Focus look more enticing. Think of what they've done here as when your significant other tries new make-up and a hair style she saw in one of those glossy magazines we guys don't really understand at all. She's the same person as on your first date years ago, but something makes her look foxier than usual.

How does that translate on the rear quarters of the new look Focus? The rhinoplasty gave it a sporty rear spoiler, as well as a more dynamic front bumper design. The hatch door has also been revisited, although differences are minimal.

 

As the name implies, the adaptive headlight technology that comes as standard from the Titanium trim level upwards is bettered with Xenon bling and a plethora of LEDs acting as daytime running lights.

But that's not all there is to this package. In addition to the ritziness it gives to the face, this option also adds LEDs for the taillights. There are minor visual divergences between normal and LED taillights on the 2015 Focus, with the latter easy to observe only if the lights are turned on and you get a glimpse of the rather delicate reverse boomerang strip of LEDs.

Once you step inside the cabin, you will see and feel that the redesigned Focus falls short from the materials or fit & finish of the VW Golf. I'm not biased towards any of the two considering I'm more of a fan of what the Japanese do, but in this case the American trumps the German in cabin areas you would not have imagined beforehand.

You know how the lower side of the dashboard on the VW Golf and other models in the segment is awash with hard, scratchy plastic? The type of plastic that's not pleasant to run your fingers on, nor to the eye.

In the 2015 Ford Focus facelift's case, somebody deserves a very fat Christmas bonus because great attention was paid to this issue.

Indicator stalks, buttons on the steering wheel, the glovebox door and controls for the air vents, they all have a nice, dampened feeling to them, which is not bad for a volume vehicle that starts at 16,450 euros (US pricing not yet available) for the hatchback.

The leather that wraps the shift boot is nice to the touch and feels like it will last in time.  As for the seats, I've spent time in the full cloth, as well as the cloth & leather seats, and they feel very comfortable. They offer lateral support, but it's not as intrusive as with other seats.

As if that wasn't enough high praise, the seatback and cushioning are soft enough even for the hopelessly long motorway journeys we all hate. If there's something I didn't like about the 2015 Ford Focus facelift's interior, it’s the minimalist approach for the dashboard design - there's just too little embellishment for your eyes. I'm not nitpicking, but at times I found myself driving what I thought to be a company car or a run-of-the-mill rental.

It's not a bad thing though, having so little garnishment since the simplicity of it all is also a tell-tale sign there's little chance for those annoying rattles and electrical problems to appear in a few years' time after buying the car.

Furthermore, I must admit I'm won over by how Ford finally decided to get rid of the plethora of buttons that ruined the appearance of the Mk3's dashboard. For the facelift, Ford upgraded the multimedia system with the all-new SYNC Gen II infotainment unit.

Thanks to an 8-inch, high-res touchscreen, those physical buttons of the pre-facelift are now gone and the center stack feels a lot more airy. Ford's SYNC II is a feature that's bundled with many others in a 2,000 EUR package called Trend, but it's worth every penny.

 

You don't get a physical button next to the handbrake. Those are the controls that turn on the heated steering wheel and the automated parking assistant.

If you want to hoon the Focus, you'll need to use the buttons on the left side of the wheel to dwell through the trip computer's menu in order to turn the electronic nannies off.

At times I found myself looking for service stations to buy a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolate. They weren't for my girlfriend, but for the satellite navigation lady that was very fond of telling me gratuitous nonsense.

I remember the first time the sat nav lady I refer to as Janet got on my nerves. I was listening to music from my smartphone via Bluetooth audio.

It was Pink Floyd's Any Colour You Like and as I was enjoying David Gilmour's reverberated guitar solo, the sat nav lady started telling me something totally useless about safety or the route I was driving on.

Why? It could have waited a minute or two, Janet! But that's just the start of my star-crossed relationship with Janet.