Despite its four-star NHTSA safety rating, a Top Safety Pick award, and a modest starting price, the 2012 Ford Focus simply has too many issues to qualify as a smart used car buy.
Key Points
- The 2012 Ford Focus has nearly 3,450 complaints on file with the NHTSA, 10 recalls, and three investigations.
- Transmission issues, including sudden power loss, are the biggest concern for 2012 Focus owners, and repairs can cost more than the car itself.
- Power steering problems tally nearly a thousand complaints, with the wheel going completely stiff for many drivers.
- The 2012 Focus suffers a number of structural issues. The leading concern is over doors flying open while the car is in motion.
- Existing issues, combined with the age of the 2012 Ford Focus, make it a poor choice for a daily-driver, and potentially even worse for a project car.
Sudden Power Loss Takes the Lead Among a Whole Bunch of Transmission Issues Attributed to the 2012 Ford Focus
The 2012 Ford Focus has 3,440 complaints on file with the NHTSA, and a third reference powertrain problems. To put that into perspective, the 2015 Focus doesn’t even have a thousand complaints in total. So, clearly, the transmission is the car’s biggest source of worry.
Problems range from cylinder misfires to total transmission failure, but the running thread here is power loss. Drivers report that the car will suddenly lose power when accelerating, or die out in traffic, coasting to a stop.
In some instances, the transmission dies and never runs again, and in others, it’s fine after a short rest.
Eventual transmission failure is frequently inevitable once these problems start popping up, and with the car now out of warranty, you could be spending $5,000 to $6,000 on a brand-new powertrain for a decade-old car.
A recall was issued in 2013 for “sudden loss of motive power,” but the recall only covered the all-electric models. Meanwhile, several hundred Focus drivers have been left with nothing to do but dig into their own pockets for the repairs, or simply junk the car.
2012 Ford Focus’ Power Steering is Likely to Go Out, With No Ongoing Recalls or Investigations to Resolve the Problem
Steering issues have been almost as big a problem for 2012 Focus drivers as powertrain troubles, with over 900 complaints on file. In a recent complaint, one owner says he saw a warning light that the power-steering assist had been disabled and needed to be serviced, and the wheel became difficult to turn.
Another driver says he experienced the steering lock-up multiple times, and he can usually fix the problem by turning the engine off and back on. But the recurring pattern here is warning lights alerting drivers to a power steering issue, and the power steering failing to kick in when turning the wheel.
Despite the car having nearly a thousand steering complaints on file, none of the vehicle’s 10 recalls or three investigations have anything to do with the power steering. As with the powertrain issues, if you are experiencing power-steering failure, you’ll probably be paying for it out of pocket.
Drivers have reported repairs running upwards of $2,000. While that’s a worst-case scenario, the worst-case scenario outcome isn’t uncommon according to the reports on file with the NHTSA, with several drivers requiring full replacements of major steering components.
2012 Ford Focus’ Doors May Fly Open While Driving Thanks to Fragile Latches
Along with the steering and powertrain issues facing the 2012 Ford Focus, the car also has its share of structural problems. The vehicle was included in a June of 2020 recall covering more than 2,000,000 Fords, over doors that could fly open while the car was in motion. Broken door latches were found to be the culprit.
The car has 320 structural complaints on file pointing to an assortment of build-quality issues, like flickering lights and so on. But by and large, the door latch complaints tend to dominate this section of the car’s NHTSA page, with drivers reporting that the car will simply pop open when you lean on the door.
The recall was issued in the mid-2020, but complaints on the matter continued into early 2021. Whether this means that people are simply not claiming the recall, or that the recall was incomplete, who can say. In any case, the problem seems persistent.
You Can Do a Lot Better Than a 2012 Ford Focus, Even at its Modest Asking Price
You probably shouldn’t buy a 2012 Ford Focus. In fact, the nameplate had a pretty bad run throughout the whole first half of the 2010s, with more of these models than not topping a thousand registered complaints. By the time they rolled out the 2015 model, most of these issues were under control.
If you’re looking for a daily-driver, a 2012 Ford Focus simply can’t be counted on. If you’re looking for a project car, a new steering column assembly and transmission might have you spending more on your 2012 Focus than you could have spent on a 2021 model.
Photos: Ford
