The Story
This Focus kinda just fell into my lap. I was looking for a car to drive while I did a bunch of body work and painted my Volvo V70 (the first gen V70 that was still on the 850 chassis) in my college. I had original found a manual Volvo C30 in mint condition but that deal fell through and on my way back from that deal the Focus popped up within 2 mins of it being posted in my price range. I shot the guy a message immediately and picked the car up two days later. After getting it I noticed that the hood and front bumper weren't the correct color and had been resprayed, they were a very slight pinkish red and did not look good. I consulted one of my college instructors and we looked over the car to see if I should respray the Focus instead of my V70. I ended up deciding to repaint the Focus because the clear was starting to flake on the roof and anywhere else that was pointed up. Also because of the mismatched bumper and hood. So I put it in the shop around Feb 2025 and work on it daily at college (I was doing a collision repair certification program) and I ended up being the only full time student that semester, so for about three months I came in to college and worked on the focus for about 5 hours mon-thurs. I ended up timing it perfectly because the spring semester finished mid way through May and I had the car painted and put back together by May 12th (my birthday as well) and the semester ended the 15th.
I learned a lot in those months on how painfully slow if can be doing all the bodywork to get the car ready to paint. They don't lie when they say painting a car is 90% prep and 10% painting. I'm super proud to say that I did all the body work and sprayed the car myself and I can't thank my instructors enough for all the advice and teaching. Tho now I have to fix two spots because of an owl that bounced off my hood and a tree i backed into.
Since I have gotten it out of the shop i have had a lot of things go bad with this car and I'll list them here.
Transmission exploded 6 hours from home
Clutch went bad
Everything on the serpentine belt side has broken
Heater Core
OEM plastic thermostat housing broke (thanks Ford)
Many many issues with my O2 sensors breaking (internal or getting snapped off), i have gotten a different header and mid pipe setup to fix this.
And many coolant lines springing leaks.
