?????New P5?????

[mint_blue_p5]

Do you all know how strong the Ford Focus platform is? It was designed around the rally cars. The new focus was designed to be very durable for rally racing. So there is really no room to bash the Focus' platform. It's a well engineered car.

i wasn't bashing the focus in any way...

i just don't like the idea of "sharing" platforms

ppl tend to bash the focus and corolla's but they still have cars racing in the WRC's.

though my favorite has to be the tommi makinen evo VI and the peugeot 206

 

[Captain KRM P5]

So there is really no room to bash the Focus' platform. It's a well engineered car.

Not entirely true. The Focus has several service bulletins and a safety recall or two - the Protege/MP3: none. If you check with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration website, it will show more than a few mentions of failed rear suspensions and steering linkages.

I'd be hard pressed to ever buy a Ford. My family replaced two engines, six transmissions, two sliding doors, a back hatch, three water pumps, three alternators, two rear axles and two differentials on the Ford Aerostar we owned. The Ford Expedition we owned collapsed to the ground while we sat in the front yard. The cause was a snapped torsion bar. The casting on all torsion bars on the F-series / Expeditions / Navigators was defective, so the bar would just snap cleanly at the exact same point. We had to fight to get Ford to replace it at thier expense. "It's not a recall if we don't know how to fix it." I won't even get into my friend's Taurus.

Ford could build a million mile car that runs on saltwater and hits 60 in one second and I'd still take my money elsewhere.

 

[big_ben]

i just don't like the idea of "sharing" platforms

I like the Idea of sharing platforms. It makes things more affordable. Look at the new Hummer H2. It used to be owned by American General. Now, GM bought the rights to it and they put in the Suburban frame. You used to have to fork out over $90,000 for a hummer, now, you can buy one for the cost of a Corvette. I'm definetely going to be looking at one in about 3 years after graduation.

 

[big_ben]

By the word platform, we are speaking of the frame. Almost everything else is different. So the service buletin thing doesn't matter. Something like the steering box being bad on the focus has nothing to do with it's frame.

 

[WaatDaHell]

With regards to the picture, it does look pretty good. I like the side view and the shape of it. But I just don't like the center part in the front. They can fix it a little I'm sure, considering this is probably just a concept picture, if it's even real at all. The next generation Protege will be based on the next generation Focus though, which is pretty sad. The Focus line of cars, with major emphasis on the "line of cars" and not on a specific model like ZX3 or ZX5, is pretty good. It was on car and driver's 10 best two years running. But I don't think they took reliablity into much consideration, because Ford is getting a lot of smoke for the Mexican built Focus. They're being investigated by the gov't kinda the same way Cingular is in the cellular phone business. I'd never by a Ford though. I've always been into Honda's, BMW's, and Audi's. But with my budget, I went with the Protege5. Also, regarding all the brands being related now, Honda and BMW are actually the only two brands to be independent. BMW owns a couple other brands like Mini and Rolls Royce, but that's about it. The new Range Rover was the last of the vehicles that had "BMW" in it.