I am in between about to publish this post. First I thought, there is no need to show an adverse side of a new car. Everything is a state of art with this new car except one thing! Later, I changed my mind to share this with other people. But not to change the image of the brand, just to inform them.
I am talking about the new Ford Focus. As you might remember, I liked the new Ford Focus and advice to people to buy it instead of Golf’s snob interpretation of Audi A3. However, there is one thing wrong with Focus. I did not confuse the words, wrong.
New Ford Focus still has the pre-historic drum brakes in the rear wheels. For people who has no idea about drum brakes. These brakes are very old technology, however there were preferred by car manufacturers until last couple of years. These brakes have a metal cover and the pads pressure that metal cover to stop the car. It has a long life, cheaper manufacture, they don’t like high temperatures and not very comfortable. The second point is more important for the companies. And that point made drum brakes charming, even the Mercedes A Class first generation had them, VW Golf had them, Renault had them, Fiat had them, Ford had them. Hopefully, each brand started to vanish their drum brakes from their store houses and offer the contemporary technology disc brakes.
Additionally, drum brakes are a Trojan horse for a luxury brand image. Even though people do not know well about them, their friends may know very well and tell them to avoid that brand. Also in magazines, it is always mentioned that drum brakes are old technology; on TV this is mentioned millions of times. And there is a very basic statement for drum brakes and luxury; they cannot be together. If you try to integrate them, you will place a Trojan horse to your product which can destroy the image at any time. Therefore, drum brake is something Ford must avoid; if they are really willing to alter their brand image.
Hopefully¸ these idiotic brakes are only available with some engines but I cannot remember them now. If you have modern EcoBoost engines, you will have proper disc brakes at the rear. Probably, you will not see drum brake Ford Focus around your town but knowing that Ford still stuck on old school technology is not something good.
Three years ago, I read on CAR Magazine Ford’s target brand is Audi and they were planning to increase their quality and alter their brand image to achieve the same perception. If they are still thinking like (I think so), they must get rid of this drums.
Again, only some Ford Focus models come with drum brakes. Please ask Ford dealers for further information.
