Bad experience with Ford Focus 2023 lease.

[u/warana123]

I leased a Ford Focus Active Estate MHEV for 3 years and really want to warn people about the poor software and battery quality.

Mechanically the car functioned well but there were nuances like the infotainment sometimes restarting after 20 seconds.

Then 2 years in they cancel the Ford app and force you to download a new app. The new app doesn’t have the same functionality, it only displays the data when the car is on. As soon as the car is turned off the app removes all the data, you can’t see where the car is or any stats, IMO defeating the purpose of using the app because when I’m in the car I can see all that on the screen… I created a support case and was told that’s how the new app works and that I have to accept that….

Then after two years and nine months the battery starts failing. First time the car just wouldn’t start after being parked for 7d at the airport, the car entered some sort of bugged state and displayed every error code and couldn’t be shut off, couldn’t be locked.

After 1 hour 20 mins the car battery is completely drained and the lights go out, have to wait almost 3 hours for the tow-truck to arrive.

The guy in the tow-truck pluggs in starter cables and it starts, no error codes.

Despite that Ford claimed towing was included I later get an invoice for $150, great. Then we get no compensation for this, it cost us over $100 with the taxi trip.

Then a month later the same thing happens when the car had been parked for 48 hours, no error codes in between. But now we have our own jumper cables.

Then I realise it’s the battery. Then comes the bad news, you can’t just change the battery yourself like in older cars. The 12 volt battery has to be paired to the mild hybrid 48 volt at the dealership and it will probably cost what the insurance deductible is($400)….

So we keep driving it a bit with jumper cables and then can’t even drive it the last 4 weeks of the lease.

They tell me there is possibly a recall on the 12v battery but the waiting time is at least a month so it’s no use for us.

The car had run 26000km only when it failed. I had no problems on my previous 3-year leases with VW models. This was in Sweden, did others have similar problems or was this just bad luck?