Ford's Hatchback Tax: 2012 Ford Focus Five-Door Costs $795 More Than Similar Sedan
Tickets for Ford’s 2012 Focus (coming next spring) start at a Cruze-pipping $16,270 (destination charge not included), but that’s for a “S” Trim four-door sedan with “100A” equipment (rear drum brakes, manual air conditioning steelies). In other words, as with the Fiesta, Ford has made its “come-on-in special” version of the Focus sedan-only. Move up to the “SE” trim for an apples-to-apples comparison, and you find that the Focus hatch carries the same $795 “hatchback tax” as the Fiesta. SE Sedans start at $17,270, while the SE hatchback starts at $18,065 (Sedan pricing in PDF here, Five-Door here). Meanwhile, “Titanium”-spec Focii are knocking on $23k, at which point you’re getting the same 2.0 GDI as the base model, while Cruze customers venturing into similar price territory will have upgraded to the well-received 1.4 Turbo. So why is it that the hatchback tax bothers me the most?
Possibly because I once bought a Mk1 Focus ZX3 for the very reason that it was the cheapest model in the lineup but offered the convenience and superior looks of the hatch with the perfect equipment for a young gent (alloys, CD player). There’s something fundamentally cheap-and-cheerful about hatchbacks… which, to my mind, means there’s something fundamentally cruel and cynical about Ford’s decision to not only tax them but to not offer the bodystyle on the base Focus or Fiesta. On the other hand, the Mk 1 Focus sales were consistently soggy, and as a result we’ve been without a Ford hatchback for years since. Still, if hatchback Focii didn’t sell well when they were the cheapest model of the bunch, how can they sell well now that they’re needlessly taxed?
Meanwhile, why does Ford’s website show the hatchback as actually being cheaper than the sedan?
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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Many of your commenters have nailed it: The SUV is their most profitable model, after all, it's just a fancy truck, with fewer pollution and safety regulations. So, if you're going to abandon their most profitable line, for a hatch with the most cargo capacity YOUR GOING TO PAY for It.
On the SE and SEL models, the 5-door is $795 more than the Sedan. The 5-door has several additional features not found on the 4-door Sedan- Body-color rear spoiler, Rear window wiiper, Removable cargo-area package tray and 60/40-split folding rear seats with tip-fold-flat feature. On the top-end Titanium trim level, the 5-door only costs $495 more than the Sedan. The Titanium Sedan has a standard rear spoiler, which explains the $300 lower price gap between the two body styles. The difference between 4-door and 5-door versions of the Fiesta is $800. The 5-door adds a Rear spoiler, rear wiper and a body-color grille in place of the 3-bar chrome grille. The $800 premium is pretty steep for the upgrades you get on the Fiesta, especially compared to the Fiesta. Ford isn't the only one who prices 5-door hatchback models higher than their 4-door sedan counterparts. The 5-door Mazda3 and Subaru Impreza are both priced $500 higher than their identically equipped sedan versions!