Oh no, not FRENCH!!!!

[Howard81]

On the bulbs thing, it's not so much them going but the utterly ridiculous palava to Chang them. One of the headlights even necessitated taking the headlight unit out or the air intake and battery.

Also, now the air con is intermittent ly brokenn along with the broken drivers side window makes it stupidly hot.

I really like the way the Focus drives, but something is always broken and compared to other cars in its class, it has a pokey boot and no legroom.

I'd never buy another Focus and I'd be wary of buying a car with a late TDDi engine too.

My friends 2007 Megane had the fuse for the rear numberplate lights blow recently - as the fusebox is upside-down to keep it dry, to change a single fuse you have to remove the battery, battery box, a big chunk of wiring loom, the ECU, a big metal bracket and the entire fusebox.. £110 labour and 15p for the fuse.. It's the same nonsense to change the headlight bulb on that side! Suddenly the crappy Lucas fuse box on our cars doesn't seem so bad after all!

[stranter]

Wow. That's crazy. I knew there was a reason I never have owned a Renault.

[Carledo]

I have a theory on French car design - so far yet to be disproven - that they start with a shell into which they install the bare block and gearbox. They then get all the ancillary parts in a big cardboard box, upend it over the engine bay and bolt everything on exactly where it falls! There's no other logical explanation for such wanton complication in construction!

Steve