Part of sneaking up north over the holidays involved renting a car. Dropping in from a helicopter would have made far too much noise. We had chosen subcompact for our rental, so I was happy when the rental place did not give us a Chevy Aveo or Hyundai Accent. Frankly I was just glad they held our reservation on file, since it would have thrown our plan into moderate chaos if they didn’t.
We were, instead, given a 2004 Ford Focus. That seemed kind of old to me for a rental car, but it survived the trip so it served its purpose. We got the sedan version of Ford’s smallest car. Back in the day (2001ish) Kate and I test drove a Focus Hatchback, but we did not purchase it because I had just driven a new Mustang and my mind would not permit it. I suspect if I had test-driven the Focus and then not the Mustang, maybe I’d be driving the Focus now? Who knows. Just glad I got the car I did.
I won’t judge the car too harshly, it was almost four years old with 30k miles on it. The car charger didn’t work, but the stereo did and that was good. The stereo worked well and supported MP3 discs. In between picking up the car and setting off, I quickly burned an MP3 cd of about 100 or so songs, hoping that would get us through the trip. The songs I burned were lame, but the player worked well enough. I wish it would show both the name of the artist and song, instead of just the name of the mp3 file.
Trunk space was pretty darn good considering it was a sedan. The back seats could fold down if needed (and really, this should be standard on all cars with back seats at this point), and all of our presents fit. The seats were comfortable enough for the 15 hours we sat in them, but were no where as good as the Celica’s or the Honda Accord’s. My seat also squeaked whenever I moved, but I suspect it has more to do with being a rental car then being a Focus.
The handling and acceleration were fine, I never felt it was underpowered or anything like that. It also passed the swerve test when we were driving up and I almost took the exit into the heart of the Bronx. It was just too late in the day for high-intensity city driving. Gas Mileage was also good, I think we only had to fill the tank 2 1/2 times.
I do wish they had given us the SVT version of the car, but that probably would have lead to speeding tickets, and that would definitely not been part of the day’s plan or budget.