The Good.
Manual transmission was the correct choice. True, I'm sort of learning as I go how to handel certain situations, but as a whole it is nice to be able to accelerate when you want to. True, it's not going to beat anyone in a race, but it is refreshing to get a response right away from the vehicle.
CD player works, sound system is good, and as soon as I get the iPod connector cable for this thing, I will be in audio heaven.
GREAT visibility out the back. It is on par with visibility out the front. The seats are awkward to turn around in when backing up, but it's made easier by having a super-wide rear window.
Good mileage... if you want it. This past week I've been playing around with my mileage, seeing the range. Overall so far I've gotten about 30 MPG with equal city/ hw driving. One day (really trying) on the highway, I got an average of 40! This was an average commute home, going 65! I was really impressed. So of course, the next 2 days I drove like a maniac, seeing how much I could push that average down... Turns out hard driving on the highway (low gear passing, higher avg speeds) stays around 30. Hard city driving gets the worst by far, but I'm not sure exactly what it is.
Feels very comfortable cruising, even up to 80. No overbearing engine noise, no thrasing feeling. Takes the bumps of city streets quite admirably, too.
The speedometer is loads easier to read when the headlights are on. I only test drove the car in the day, and had complained the gauges were vauge and hard to interpret, but with the dash light on, all the major unit lines are lit up. I guess that's a good thing. If only they were easily visible all the time.
The bad.
Electronic acclerator means sometimes a delay in revving the engine. It's especially annoying when you're trying to double-clutch on the highway. True, modern syncros mean that you don't need to double-clutch, but it saves the transmission some wear in the long run, and to be quite honest, I'm just practicing for when I have to shift in the Z car ;)
Light color not only is unnattractive (to some, but not all), but it shows dirt and pollen accumulation too well. This has been cripplingly bad this past week with all the rain we've had. It may be a new car, but it looks dirtier than everything else on the road.
The back window may be wide and awesome to look out, but it is a tad high. Because of the large, rising trunk, the rear window has a distinctive 'upwards tilt' that I'm not use to yet, causing much anxiety when I need to parallel park. I'm sure I'll get use to it.
REALLY soft suspension. If anyone knows of that stretch of 93N near exit 36, you'll know a well-known 'ripple' in the road. Hitting this at highway speeds in the Focus causes the pillow-soft springs to toss you waaaay up and down. I'm sure getting stiffer shocks would prevent this (it was not nearly this bad in the Jetta), but would detract from around-town driving smoothness.
Tire pressure was low when they gave me the car. A few days later it got cold, and the tire pressure light blinked on. Not really a complaint about the car, just a complaint in general. I had to re-air the tires within the first week of ownership (
I'll update the blog with anything else I notice. But for the first week, I'm very content!
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