Hi
thats less than twenty kilometers from my home.
Mine is from there also.
bye
Jupp

HbgpodLW wrote:

If this is true I'm sure that's one point of difference between UK
(if not Europe) and the US. Do women pay attention to quality
issues, read up on them in Which? or other consumer mags, or are
they swayed by a good paint job?

Well at least you posted more than 1 line of insult. We often think
like Freddie but most of us usually pause and take stock and respond
in a more reasoned way, but hey ho we can't all be polite and even
tempered maybe he just had a bad day at the office.

What's arrogant of making the observation that Foci are 2nd or 3rd
choice of car and when you pay a lot less for it than mainstream cars
why would you expect mainstream quality. In no way was I implying that
because you were female that your specific expectations were not as
high but be honest if your husband brought the car for you he probably
couldn't give a damn what the quality was like unless it impinged on
his own life too much

Please cite evidence that this is the case, remember here in the Uk a
large percentage (>50%)of cars are company cars and choice is not
always an option and even if it was most peole who chose them have
another car at home

Good for you Linda I bet that makes you feel a whole lot better :-)
This doesn't matter in the UK most dealers treat you like sh*t weather
you are male or female.

The person you were addressing "Very rude person..." had the name of Gary...if
you had read the whole message you'd have seen it I think. I have AOL so I
don't know if it shows up differently on yours...I always sign mine with my
name...Linda

Congratulations Richard for jumping right in the middle of a thread
that, to a lot of folks delight, had finally ended for some 24 hours.

Did you have to use both brain cells trying to think of something
clever to say?

Freddie

I have never claimed to be an expert on the Ford Focus and if you look
at my posts you will see that most of them are based on my personal
experience with driving Focii for the last 5 years.

So where did you pop up from Freddie if you think I've been holding
court in here such a long time then. Care to point out how many posts
I have made in here over say the past 4 years. To save you the trouble
it's around 170 not a lot. Whereas you have posted  What 21 times in
less time than it takes you to decide which shoes goes on which foot
in the morning

well surprise surprise it was opinionated of me to hold an opinion.
What was rude about it please point it out. I responded to the
original question with a set of possible answers as to why the
American Focus was apparantly not as well built as its European
counterpart. No where did I state that any of them were fact but lets
look at each of them in turn.

1 Better workforce It is common knowledge that a lot of quality
problems with the early NA focus were because they were built in
Mexico where the workforce was very inexperienced compared to the say
the Workforce in Germany who have been building cars for longer that I
have been alive. This is not disimilar to the case where the cars made
in Spain are also not as good because again the workforce was new.

2 Better Parts. As has been stated by other posters in this thread the
American Focus has had supplier quality issues from before the first
day of production this is not to say that this does not happen else
where but it certainly did contribute to the problems with the early
Focus models.

3 This is obviously related to 2 in that the list price for a European
Focus is a lot higher than the NA Focus hence the percieved quality
has to be higher to maintain customer satisfaction.

4 This is the one that got up your nose I suppose. I tried to say that
to the Average American the Focus is just a little fun can that
doesn't cost a whole lot compared with your mainstream choice of cars
so why should Ford raise expectation of mainstream percieved quality?
after all I wouldn't expect the same levels of build quality in my
Focus as what I would expect from say a Mercedes C class costing more
that twice as much. As to the comments that the car is driven by the
other half and the expectations are not as high, well all I can go by
is my own experiences here in the UK where most couples who have 2
cars the wife generally drives a little runabout to do things like the
shopping etc etc this is not normally a new car  and is regarded as
just a usefull little tool to make life easier. Ok in better off
classes this may not be entirely the case but it's fair to say that in
general this second card does not have particularly high expectations
of quality surrounding it. If this came accross as offensive why not
just say so instead of using abuse. I'm prepared to apologise as much
as the next guy but not to somebody who's line in reasoned argument
seems to consist of insulting someone they don't agree with.

3

Which remarks are you on about. The only comment I have made recently
to Linda in this thread were complementing her on at least arguing her
case. You on the other hand.....

Hey I'm entitled to post to this group at least as much as you are bud
if you don't like what I post fine I don't have a problem with that
but if your only argument is a series of 1 line insults then don't
expect me to enter into reasoned debate with you.

So in the short time you have been here makes you an expert on all
things Andy now does it? So I don't like American TV. So what I don't
much like English TV either, most TV is mindless crap designed to
passify the masses.

Feel free to do what you please, but don't expect your little outburst
do anything other that reinforce my negative image of you either.