MK3 vs MK3.5 - A Tale of Two Focuses

I realise immediately that this is going to be of little interest to almost all CTers, but incase this is of relevance to anyone out there, I thought I’d offer my thoughts having switched from a 2014 Focus to a 2015 Focus (facelift). Both cars are white and similar spec, both with the famed one litre turbocharged ecoboost engine. There are a couple of differences between the spec of the two cars:

The 2015 has the higher-tuned ecoboost with 125hp/147lbft compared to the 100hp of the 2014
The 2015 has a 6 speed manual compared to the 2014’s 5 speed.
The 2015 is one trim level up - a ‘Zetec’ rather than a ‘style.’ (so a few small differences there)

Here are my thoughts:

Aesthetically, its hard to argue that the new one hasn’t resolved some of the design flaws of the orignal MK3. Okay, it’s not a massive overhaul but the new nose looks much better, especially in person, with a surprisingly pronounced splitter, better shaped grill (“blah blah blah aston martin blah blah blah”) and new corporate headlights. The rear is similar, and the overall profile has not changed.

The interior has improved, although I’ve always felt that criticisms levelled at the pre-facelift car have been unfair, especially those referencing ‘too many buttons’ and ‘not very nice plastics in some places.’ Strangely, although for the most part those ‘nasty’ plastics lower down in the cockpit haven’t changed, other reviews of the facelift have implied that Ford has improved/replaced them. Odd.
The steering wheel, which was a slightly weird shape on the ‘old’ car with seemingly mis-shaped thumb grooves, is much improved. It’s a better shape and is quite thin where your thumbs go, something I am a fan of, and it looks miles better with more neatly placed buttons. One minor thing that had me puzzled in the last car was that the volume buttons were mounted on top of the part of the wheel which you push to sound the horn, meaning that if you pushed the volume button for the radio firmly, the horn would go off which was awkward more than a couple of times on the road. The centre console is better, a marginally better layout with a couple fewer buttons. Overall, its not exactly an overhaul inside, but it is slightly improved and remains a nice place to sit.

On the road, it’s much the same. I’ve had about 6 months of driving time on each car (c3000 miles per car) and I couldn’t tell you that handled very differently, despite supposed revised suspension geometry. The steering, however, is a bit different. It’s not night and day, but it seems a bit lighter around town at slow speeds (great for parking and tight 3-pointers). Once again, in keeping with the theme of this post, the change is minor.

The 125hp ecoboost was an option on the old car just as it is now, but my previous one had the 100hp ecoboost, so the change here is not related to the facelift. The 6 speed is a nicer gearbox than the five, and the extra 25hp helps a lot at 70mph, but torque is the same across both states of tune so at slow speeds the change is not particularly noticeable.

In conclusion, the facelift car is better in every appreciable way than the 2014 model, but if you’re looking at them used then in terms of everyday use they are really very similar - not really worth switching IMO if you’re looking a steep price difference between the two (mine’s on a company lease so it was out of my hands).

If anyone wants to know anything else let me know, but otherwise I hope someone has found this useful.

Cheers