So far so good. MrsF is delighted with it. Being tall, I like the tiny low wheel over which you see the dashboard clearly instead of the top of the wheel sometimes obscuring some of it, as in my Audi. With 30% more power than our old Focus it's a sporty little thing. The EAT6 box is excellent, even though the relaxed 6th gear (just over 30mph per 1000 revs) is rarely engaged on B or even A roads, although you can persuade it to trundle along the level and downhill bits by nudging it manually into 6th. It won't let you labour the engine, changing down even in manual mode if you try. And even 5th gear is 25mph per 1000 revs, 5mph more than the manual 5th gear in a rorty revvy 80hp 1.2 Pug 208 we hired recently on hols. For overtaking you can press the S button to drop down a gear, or just floor it and it goes like a rocket, spooling rapidly to smooth 6000 rpm change-ups.
Petrol consumption is disappointing, though probably as expected from a tight new engine tuned for power rather than economy. Brim to brim, it consumed 105.35 litres for 895 miles of mostly local short trips (we use my more comfortable car for longer journeys). That's 38.7 mpg, little better than our old Focus which was 37.6 when I last measured it over a similar distance (but with more motorway journeys). The oil level hasn't moved noticeably from the max mark.
Moans? The pathetic single note 'peep' from the horn. The Focus had a rich twin-tone. Messy styling where the dash abuts the quarterlight, which I see is much improved in the new model. The reversing light is a bit dim - we'd trade the camera view on the touchscreen for a brighter one. That's about it so far. I'll do another mpg measurement in a year's time.
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