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EXPERT RATING
8.0
Graham Smith
Contributing Journalist
22 Aug 2014
5 min read
0 Comments

Daryl Eaves bought a 2009 Ford Focus petrol manual as a second car, but is disappointed with its fuel consumption, which averages 11 L/100 km. He says that it's mostly used on short trips and asks if the poor economy warrants further investigation or should he simply lower his expectations.

NEW

Sales of mid-sized cars were beginning to boom when Ford unveiled the LV Focus in 2009; traditional big cars were increasingly on the nose with buyers who were downsizing like never before.

Carmakers like Mazda and VW were leading the charge and forcing others like Ford and Holden to take the demand for smaller cars more seriously.

Ford was focused more on the Falcon and Territory, cars that affected their viability as local manufacturers, more than their smaller models such as the imported Focus and faced a tough task in selling buyers on the merits of their offerings.

The European Focus was a good driving car with great handling and should have received more attention from the market than it did.

It was offered in four-door sedan and five-door hatch body styles. Both were quite roomy for their external dimensions and offered the traditional security of a sedan or the modern practicality of a hatch depending on your preference.

The range included sporty models, but for the purposes of this column and the question asked by our reader we'll confine ourselves to the CL, LX and TDCi models that had the broadest appeal.

Petrol and diesel engine options were offered. The petrol engine was a 2.0-litre four that had all the punch needed in a car of its size; the turbo-diesel was also a 2.0-litre and delivered plenty of performance with the promise of better economy.

There was also a choice of manual and automatic transmissions. They were five-speed units with the petrol engines, but six-speeders with the diesel.

Buyers got plenty of features when they signed up for the LV Focus, with things like air, cruise, power windows and mirrors, four-speaker sound and front fog lights.

Safety was also well covered with ABS braking with electronic brakeforce distribution, traction control, and front and side airbags, and stability control on the diesel model.

NOW

Daryl Eaves bought a used 2009 Focus with the petrol engine and manual transmission for use as a second car on short trips. So far he is disappointed with its fuel consumption, which he says averages 11.0 L/100 km, and he asks if there is something wrong with the car or is it what he should expect.

Being five years or so old, and likely to have done between 80,000 and 130,000 km, you would expect that the car isn't operating as its absolute peak and be in need of a tune-up.

But the most likely answer to our reader's question is that the consumption is probably what he should expect given the short distances it's doing.

Ford claimed the 2.0-litre manual Focus would do 7.1 L/100 km on a combined cycle. That's a test cycle that is a combination of city and highway driving.

At the same time they also published figures for urban (city) driving and highway driving, those being 9.8 L/100 km and 5.4 L/100 km respectively.

With our reader's car doing short trips when a good part of its time is spent warming up the engine, transmission and differential, possibly also in stop-start traffic around the suburbs we would expect it to be getting closer to the 9.8 L/100 km than the average 7.1 L/100 km.

Doing short trips with a partly warmed-up engine is also a recipe for carbon accumulation in the combustion chambers, which can reduce a car's running efficiency and increase the fuel consumption.

To confirm our suspicions we would suggest Daryl takes it on an extended highway run and check the fuel consumption under those driving conditions. If the car is doing what it is supposed to do the consumption should drop to around 5.4 L/100 km.

If it doesn't then it's worth carrying out a tune-up, changing spark plugs, spark plug leads and air filter, cleaning the throttle body and adding some fuel system cleaner to one or two fuel fills.

A good hard run to blow accumulated carbon out of the engine could also reap benefits.

Choosing the diesel engine variant would have given Daryl a more economical car, with claimed fuel consumption of 4.8 L/100 km (hwy), 5.9 L/100 km (avg.) and 7.9 L/100 km (urban), but the TDCi is on average $2000-$3000 more expensive than the petrol models and that would need to be recovered before the potential fuel savings could be realized.

Ford Focus 2009: Coupe-Cabriolet

Engine Type Inline 4, 2.0L
Fuel Type Premium Unleaded Petrol
Fuel Efficiency 8.3L/100km (combined)
Seating 4
Price From $5,170 - $7,590
Safety Rating

Verdict

Safe, solid, small car, but our reader needs to adjust his fuel consumption expectations.

2009 Ford Focus
Price new: $23,990 to $28,290
Engine: 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder, 107 kW/185 Nm; 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder, turbo-diesel, 100 kW/320 Nm
Transmission: 4-speed auto, 5-speed manual, 6-speed auto, 6-speed manual, FWD
Economy: 7.1-8.2 L/100 km (2.0P), 5.6-5.9 L/100 km (TD)
Body: 4-door sedan; 5-door hatch
Variants: CL, LX, TDCi
Safety: 5-star ANCAP

Expect to pay:
$9000 to $11,500 for the LX
$8500 to $10,500 for the CL
$10,500 to $13,500 for the TDCi

Pricing Guides

$6,523
Based on 42 cars listed for sale in the last 6 months.
LOWEST PRICE
$2,999
HIGHEST PRICE
$12,888
Graham Smith
Contributing Journalist
With a passion for cars dating back to his childhood and having a qualification in mechanical engineering, Graham couldn’t believe his good fortune when he was offered a job in the Engineering Department at General Motors-Holden’s in the late-1960s when the Kingswood was king and Toyota was an upstart newcomer. It was a dream come true. Over the next 20 years Graham worked in a range of test and development roles within GMH’s Experimental Engineering Department, at the Lang Lang Proving Ground, and the Engine Development Group where he predominantly worked on the six-cylinder and V8 engines. If working for Holden wasn’t exciting enough he also spent two years studying General Motors Institute in America, with work stints with the Chassis Engineering section at Pontiac, and later took up the post of Holden’s liaison engineer at Opel in Germany. But the lure of working in the media saw him become a fulltime motorsport reporter and photographer in the late-1980s following the Grand Prix trail around the world and covering major world motor racing events from bases first in Germany and then London. After returning home to Australia in the late-1980s Graham worked on numerous motoring magazines and newspapers writing about new and used cars, and issues concerning car owners. These days, Graham is CarsGuide's longest standing contributor.
About Author
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Pricing Guide
$2,999
Lowest price, based on third party pricing data.
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2009 Ford Focus
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