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Ford Focus Estate - Reliability & safety

The Focus Estate’s strong safety rating is tainted by a worrying record for reliability and build quality

Carbuyer Rating

4.1 out of 5

Owners Rating

2.0 out of 5

Read owner reviews
Reliability & safety Rating

3.5 out of 5

This Ford Focus is based on entirely new underpinnings, promising to be stronger, and far less likely to be involved in a collision in the first place than the old model, thanks to advanced driver aids. What’s more concerning is Ford’s low scores for customer satisfaction and reliability, according to Ford owners that have filled out our Driver Power survey.

Ford Focus Estate reliability

According to our latest Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, the number of Ford owners reporting a fault within the first year of ownership was higher than average, at over 21%. Ford’s result in our manufacturers chart isn’t impressive, as it ranked 25th out of 29 brands. Even more worryingly, the Focus failed to make our list of the Top 75 cars in 2022; in 2021 the best scores were for practicality and running costs, as no other aspect scored well.

Safety

The latest Focus has been designed to be incredibly tough, with a 40% higher ability to absorb front impacts than before, but the Holy Grail is to avoid a collision happening at all.

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Ford’s efforts have been concentrated here, and ‘Evasive Steering Assist’ is one of the key new pieces of active safety technology. Working in conjunction with standard autonomous emergency braking, this can help you steer around a stationary or slow-moving car if a collision is imminent. Ford has also added pedestrian and cyclist recognition to the braking system, so the Focus can warn you or brake itself, even if it thinks someone is about to step out in front of you in the dark.

It all helped it to achieve five stars in Euro NCAP crash tests, with a high score of 96% for adult occupant protection.

Motorway drivers are likely to love the adaptive cruise control that can automatically stop the car in traffic, while the reversing camera now has a wide-angle lens to make reversing near traffic safer.

Model 

Length

Width

Height

Boot space

Ford Focus hatchback

4,382mm

1,825mm

1471mm

375 litres

Ford Focus estate

4,668mm

1,825mm

1,485mm

575 litres

Volkswagen Golf hatchback

4,284mm

1,789mm

1,491mm

381 litres

Volkswagen Golf estate

4,633mm

1,789mm

1,455mm

611 litres

Peugeot 308 hatchback

4,367mm

1,852mm

1,441mm

412 litres

Family hatchbacks 

Premium hatchbacks

Mid-size SUVs

  • Vauxhall Astra
  • Volkswagen Golf
  • Peugeot 308
  • SEAT Leon
  • Kia Ceed
  • Audi A3
  • BMW 1 Series
  • Mercedes A-Class
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Steve Walker is group web editor at Autovia, overseeing the online presence of Auto Express, Carbuyer, evo and DrivingElectric. Steve has been working as a motoring journalist, road tester and editor since 2002 and has written about cars for numerous titles over the years from Coach and Bus Week and the Yorkshire Post to The Scotsman, AutoTrader, MSN and the Wall Street Journal

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