Battleangel | Personal

Ford Focus rendered inoperable by fluke failure. As you can see, the front right coil spring suspension has snapped.

Now, I don’t know how common this is, but for a 11000 (Swedish) mile vehicle, it seems a bit premature. I had kind of hoped there would be something wrong with the pads and disc instead. Obviously the tyre took some damage but I don’t think it will be a problem.

Update: Opinions differ. Generally this type of failure happens, or so they say. But the local Ford mechanic, with decades of experience claims that it is indeed very rare. Ironically, they don’t even have this spare part handy. That ought to say something about the frequency.

Overall, for a car with as many awards and high praises as the Ford Focus, it’s funny that this should happen. And it’s not like it’s the first flaw that I’ve noticed either.

Update2: Again, ironically, I learned that Ford Sweden only had three or four (3-4!!!!!) coils in stock. For the entire country. What does that say about the frequency of failure? Needless to say we didn’t give the Ford shop the satisfaction of fixing the coil. As far as I am concerned the whole affair is concluded but I am a little miffed that we didn’t press Ford on this and forced them to do the repair free of charge. Clearly, this is a flaw, metal fatigue if you will, that must have been there all along. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen to Ford’s racing team and it certainly doesn’t happen to John Doe who uses the car to go shopping. Needless to say, and given my experience with Ford’s fuel injection calibration (or lack thereof), I’ll think twice before going Ford in the future.