A few days ago, my ford focus key would not turn in the ignition. After trying off and on for a few hours, my son gave up and waited for a ride. His ride arrives, they try again and magically,the car starts. Same problem happens the next day. A mechanic suggested it just may be the battery on the key chain may be weak. We change battery,car seems ok. Then it happens again and again... You get the idea. So,until we get it repaired,I am stuck w/o a vehicle. Now I am wondering how much Ford's obvious screw-up is going to cost me!

My Focus runs great but periodically when I start it the car won't turn over. I hear the fuel injector, if the radio was on that comes on but nothing as far as starting. Most times if I spend 10 or 15 minutes sitting there and trying to start it, eventually it will start. I have taken it to the shop but of course once there it starts up every time and they can't find the problem. I mentioned that when I am running the A/C that the battery light comes on so the mechanic went through and tested every wire in the harness when the light was on and still found nothing. I am thankful that they did not charge me for their time as my car was in the shop for almost 3 days with this lengthy process. I just would like to find out the cause of this problem so I can get it fixed and know that I am not just going through a laundry list of expensive parts until they finally figure out the right fix.

So here's the thing. I bought this 2004 Ford Focus, base model, in July of 2004. In December of 2005, my family and I moved overseas for 3 years. We returned in December 2008, having kept the car with other (reliable) family. I started driving it again and it sounded strange, but I assumed it was from sitting and not being driven often during the three years overseas.

The next thing that happened was that I couldn't get it to start. The engine would try to turn over. So we had a friend look at it, and another. Both said it could be the battery, so we bought a new battery. It worked for about 2 weeks, until the past few days when I had to have it jumped every morning.

So I take it to the mechanic today. I receive a call; the mechanic says the battery "isn't holding a charge" and I need a new one. This makes NO sense - I should not have two faulty batteries in a row. This is ridiculous. This isn't the first problem I've had with this car and hopefully it'll be the last, because I will never buy a Focus again & am buying a new car this weekend.

I just finished installing a new switch in my daughters 2004 ZX3. The vehicle only has 33,000 miles on it so I was surprised that the switch failed. I had to have it towed home last night at 10:00PM, which I wasn't too happy about. The switch cost me $101.00 with my supplier discount, plus a few hours in put it in. Fortunately I was able to smack the key with a rubber mallet to get the column unlocked. Otherwise I would have had to drill it out. I'm a huge Ford fan and still own my first car (1966 Fairlane GT) which I bought in 1970. This switch issue pisses me off though. Ford knows they have an issue and they refuse to fix it. That is a sure way to not have repeat customers. This is the kind of stuff that drives people to buy Jap junk or worse yet, Korean crap. I work for a major supplier to Ford and if we were shipping junk like this switch, they would be all over us to get it fixed. This is poor business practice by Ford. I assume this is some European supplier since the Focus was designed at Ford of Europe. Their attitude over there is, "cars break down, get over it". I guess that attitude has flowed into Ford of North America. I will be writing a letter to Ford upper management about my discontent with their product.

If you can do your own mechanical work, you can fix this problem yourself and save $200.00. Good luck.