Arrrrgh!

Last week started off with the untimely death of the CD burner in my laptop. This week, it's the ignition in my Focus, which will no longer allow me to turn the key and start the damn car. (A common problem with Foci, evidently. The chances of my buying another Ford are pretty much nil right now.)

I'm almost afraid to see what happens next week.

Update: I actually managed to get it started over the lunch hour, so at least I didn't need to have it towed to the dealer. They can't say for sure what the repairs will cost, but it should be at least a couple of hundred.

The reliability record for the Focus has actually improved to "average" in the latest Consumer Reports - as has that of the Dodge Neon ("SX 2.0" in Canada), which has an even more notorious reputation for quality problems. If the American manufacturers could get it right the first time around, we might have something.

Unless I start having an unbearable number of problems, I plan to keep the Focus at least until I pay it off. After that, the Mazda 3 looks very nice indeed - but in my very snowy neighbourhood (the last in Corner Brook to be plowed, of course), a CR-V or RAV4 might be more appropriate.

Posted by damian at January 19, 2004 09:08 AM