 I purchased this car as my first vehicle, i had worked odd and end jobs for several years leading up to be 16 and i was finally ready to purchase a car. The focus really caught my attention simply because i had never seen another like it before. I purchased the car used with 115k miles for 4k, this was in 2013. it is now 2017 and I am currently waiting to trade this thing in. the first few months with it were fine, and then little things started to happen, weather it was a rattle here, or an odd vibration there, i never thought anything of it because i had the car serviced every 3k miles. the first major problem i had out of the car was the failure of the ignition switch. this happened at approximately  125k miles, about 1 year after owning the car. the ignition switch malfunctioned and the key could not be used to start the car. upon taking this car to the dealership, i was informed that it would cost 300$ for parts plus labor, and i would be without my car for 2-3 weeks. i agreed and let ford keep my car and went to pick it up 2 weeks later to find that the problem had not been resolved. after addressing this my money was refunded and the issue had not been fixed, i replaced the ignition switch and still didn't fix my problem. i know start the car with a screwdriver. another issue that i have with my focus is that the door handles have broken 2 times on each side, so instead of fixing it for a 3rd time i use a piece of string to open my door from the outside. this is the worst car i have ever came in contact with, and it is getting traded in soon! my mother says thats she's scared for me to drive it for long distances bc she thinks that is is going to leave me stranded. I'm a junior in college and can honestly say that this is the most embarrassing and unreliable car I've ever seen.