ford focus longevity?

[yellHeather]

Hi! I am considering buying a 2003 Ford Focus and was wondering about their lifespan. My other options are 2000(ish) Toyota Corolla or 2000(ish) Honda Accord or Civic. I know Toyotas and Hondas can last 200,000+ miles, but what about the Ford Focus? Anyone know?
If you know anything about Ford Focus, I would benefit from hearing any positives or negatives about the car, too! Thanks!
Heather

[dvdrose18]

What determines the lifespan of any car is for the most part the maintenance. Some people will swear that Hondas and Toyotas will last longer than any Domestic car, but others will tell of how their domestic car lasted for 200k+ miles. It realy depends on how it was maintained. If you are looking at a car, see if you can get service records. Was all the routine maintenance done, or did it go 10,000 miles without an oil change. From my experience, you can get a domestic car for half the price of a similar foreign car.
My personal opinion is that you are better off getting the younger car so you can do the maintenance yourself, rather than assuming that someone did the maintenance on the older car.

Of the cars, I would say that the Focus has the cheapest feel, with the Civic a close second. Not that this has anything to do with over all quality, I just remember the focus and the civic feeling plasticy.
You might want to look at Consumer Reports to see what other people are saying.

[newyorker]

We had a ford focus 2003 at our lot that was a tradein, owned by a girl since new, 104k miles, had full maintenance records.

With the AC on, there was a lot of engine hesitation and the transmission was always jumpy.

Just my experience. I do however like it more than a civic or corolla, but reliability wise, i have a bad vibe about domestics

[DBain]

I'm rather impartial between domestic and foreign. However, my girlfriends father bought her a brand new one as her first car, until she blew the motor in it with just under 100,000mi and then he bought her another one which the trans was starting to go(auto) and then that motor went. She doesn't know much about cars and only does maint when she's told to by either myself or her brother in law(shop owner). She also let her ex's drive them and beat em around a little.
If taken care of they should last like any other car, but she drives cars nicely and has all her maint done professionally.
Personally I didn't like driving them and dislike the looks even more, along with the experience of going through 2 new ones in less than 6years.
As for foreign I bought my acura with around 30,000mi on it and now it's got around 125k. First two years were just general tune ups and brakes. In the past two years I've spent a couple grand in maint. Some needed, some just because. I can tell you I've beat the bag out of it for 4years and almost 100k and it's still running strong.
Just my experience...