#FordFocus

While Ford unceremoniously ended Focus production in the U.S. earlier this year, the model is trying its best to stay in the public eye. The automaker has announced a recall of nearly 1.5 million Focus vehicles in North America to prevent a stuck purge valve from vacuuming up the 2.0-liter engine’s performance.

As owners await notification, Ford implores them to head to their local gas station and fill’er up.

U.S. Ford Focus production ended in May, but the automaker planned to import the next-generation Focus Active, a slightly lifted, mildly cladded five-door, in order to have something to sell to entry-level buyers. With the subcompact Fiesta ceasing production early next spring and the Fusion following it a couple of years later, that left very little low-end product for new or returning customers.

Well, scratch a crossoverized Focus off your shopping list. The automaker now says the Focus Active will not arrive on these shores in the latter part of 2019, or any date after that.

After learning this, how many of you are now pricing a three-cylinder, FWD EcoSport? Anyone? Hello?

Think back to the very early days of the previous decade and memories of awful mainstream rock compete with visions of the first-generation Ford Focus sedan. It was everywhere, and quite a few people has quite a few problems with theirs. By the end of the decade, however, those issues were mainly in the rear-view, as Ford was busy preparing to heap dual-clutch transmission woes onto its customers.

Now, the Focus sedan’s officially dead as the Blue Oval embarks on a nearly car-free voyage to the future. Only the faux crossover “Active” version of the next-gen 2019 Focus stands to see any customers in North America, but it’s a privilege reserved only for citizens of the United States. Canucks need not apply.

Too bad, as the next-gen Focus sedan’s a looker. Its designers aren’t exactly thrilled that so many countries have taken a pass.

The biggest automotive news story of the last week was Ford’s decision to abandon almost all passenger cars in the North American market. Whether you think it’s a smart business decision as consumers shift toward crossovers or a colossal misstep, you were probably envisioning a gradual phase-out as the company bolsters its domestic truck and SUV lineup for 2022. Well, you thought wrong, because Focus production ends this May.

Fortunately, you’ll have a little more time to snag a Taurus or Fiesta before those models are also killed off. Taurus assembly is slated to end in March of 2019, with the Fiesta murdered a couple of months later. After that, you’ll be stuck with whatever dealers have left on the lot and the venerable Mustang coupe. Americans will also have access to a Focus Active imported from China. But it’s as much crossover as it is hatchback, doesn’t start importing until the middle of 2019, and won’t be available in Canada at all.

During the middle 1990s, Volkswagen partnered with Wisconsin bicycle manufacturer Trek and sold Trek Edition Jettas, complete with a Trek mountain bike and roof rack. Ford marketers saw an opportunity to out-cool Volkswagen in the bicycle-car pairing department, and figured they’d go to the Pacific Northwest for the bike to include with their biked-up Focus.

Thus was the Kona Edition Focus born, and I managed to find one of these rarities in a self-service wrecking yard in California’s Central Valley.

For a country that looks at its southern neighbor’s gasoline prices with lust and envy, you’d think small cars would make up a greater share of the vehicle mix. Well, they don’t. Canadians like their crossovers, pickups, and SUVs even more than Americans, and Ford’s future product lineup shows it.

It seems like just yesterday you could walk into a Ford dealer and check out a stingy and unsafe Aspire, before the hungry salesman upsold you on an Escort (or perhaps its sporty ZX2 sibling). Then there was the Contour, Taurus, and Crown Victoria to consider.

Those days are gone, and under Ford’s new truck-centric product plan, which ditches the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus, Canada won’t even get the crossover-ized Focus Active hatch. It’s a Mustang or nothing for small car lovers.

Apparently, we’ve made our bed and now need to lie in it.

We appear to be entering into a minor renaissance for modestly sized cars, thanks largely to global influence and technological advancement. The timing couldn’t be better, either — with crossovers usurping more of the market every day, these little scamps need all the help they can get. That’s especially true of small cars with declining sales. Like, say, the Ford Focus.

While the third generation of the model enjoyed a massive sales surge in its rookie season, it’s been losing volume ever since. That’s to be expected of any maturing model, but the Focus went from 245,992 U.S. deliveries in 2012 to just 158,385 in 2017. So Ford is setting up the fourth generation on its new C2 platform, regardless of what country it’s sold in, as well as some big changes in terms of equipment and styling.

However, we’re left wondering how these updates will translate when the model makes it way to North America. The new Focus hits the streets of Europe and China later this year, but won’t arrive in the United States until the second half of 2019, presumably as a 2020 model. That gives Ford time to adapt the vehicle but, with the exception of some powertrain changes, we’re not entirely sure what to expect.

Ford may have shuffled production of the next-generation Focus to China, but it hasn’t given up on the model entirely. That’s sufficiently good news for small car fans, what with domestic automakers dropping small car models like a scalding spatula.

The 2019 Focus reveals itself in a London, England event on April 10th, but the automaker’s European division saw fit to post a classy black-and-white video in advance of the reveal. While European buyers can look forward to numerous bodystyles, it’s not going to be close to the same lineup over on this side of the pond. Ford wants the next Focus to move slightly upmarket while offering less overall choice. If buyers aren’t taking to the compacts in the same numbers as before, why not try to squeeze extra profit from each vehicle?

So, what can we learn from this teaser?

Ford Motor Company has announced a recall of 1,378,637 vehicles for a very concerning problem: steering wheels that may come loose and detach from the steering column while the car is underway.

It’s a problem first investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last year, but Wednesday’s recall spreads a wider net. Affected vehicles include Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ sedans built in the U.S. and Mexico over five model years. According to Ford, the problem stems from a key bolt that just can’t stay married to the threads.

Ford Motor Co. will be temporarily laying off roughly 2,000 hourly employees at its Michigan Assembly and Stamping Plants in May so it can begin retooling the site’s facilities for production of the 2019 Ford Ranger and 2020 Ford Bronco. The location will be idled for roughly five months and Ford wants to make it very clear that these are temporary layoffs.

The automaker said in a notice in compliance with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act that all affected employees will either return to the plant in October or transfer to another factory. Ford also said it would be ending production of the Focus sedan and C-Max on May 7th.

It didn’t enjoy a long life, especially here in North America, and it didn’t make it through that short time span without an embarrassing engine defect, but good luck finding someone who’d turn down a hoon session in a Ford Focus RS.

As the king of all hot hatches, the Focus RS gave enthusiasts a sensible five-door for shuttling their kids to school and the ability to shred four tires into coleslaw on the trip home. Well, get ready to pick up a shovel. The Focus goes into its grave on April 6th, and the model line’s future has never looked shakier.

Given the recent introduction of a new Expedition, EcoSport, refreshed Edge, and reborn Ranger, it’s easy to forget Ford Motor Company still sells small cars. While the current-generation Fiesta subcompact took a pass on the American market, the Focus remains, and there’s a new generation waiting in the wings.

Would-be buyers can gaze beyond the camouflage at the next-gen Focus in April, according to Automotive News Europe, with the model forgoing an expected reveal at the March Geneva Motor Show. What can we expect out of the new Focus? Going by recent reports, a slightly larger vehicle, along with a lot less choice for consumers.

We told you recently of the tsunami of complaints from Ford Focus RS owners swamping the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — and other agencies — with minor gripes like, say, their brand new car burning engine coolant. Well, there’s a fix afoot.

In a recently released service bulletin, Ford describes the issue plaguing its hottest hatch and vows to replace every cylinder head installed in a Focus RS built between August 3, 2015 to July 6, 2017. That is to say all of them.

Rarely does one hear an automaker point out that the next generation of a popular product is headed downmarket.

Even when a vehicle is repositioned in a lower end of the market, “downmarket” is the last word you’re going to hear out of an auto executive’s mouth. Instead, automakers up the value quotient, cater to the demands of discerning buyers, or find new production efficiencies we can pass on to the customer.

More often, automakers tout their new product as a move upmarket. So it is with Ford Motor Company’s fourth-generation Focus, according to Jim Farley, formerly of Ford of Europe and current head of Ford global markets. “It goes upmarket in exactly the same way as the new Fiesta,” Farley says.

Also like the new Fiesta, the 2019 Ford Focus will spawn an Active variant. Subaru Crosstrek here we come?

Ford has plans to halt production of the compact Focus — a one-time juggernaut of a model — for an entire year. But wouldn’t you rather talk about the upcoming Ranger and Bronco?

Of course you would. You’d rather buy one, too, if only the resurrected nameplates were already on lots. Back in 2002, when Limp Bizkit was still on the charts and frosted tips hadn’t entirely disappeared from the hair scene, Ford unloaded 243,199 Focus cars to U.S. buyers. Compare that to the first five months of 2017, where 67,146 Foci left dealer lots in a marketplace where passenger car sales are falling like Brent crude prices in 2014.

It’s against this backdrop that Ford plans to temporarily pull the plug on the Focus. While there’s good reason for the shutdown, the automaker doesn’t seem all that concerned about it.